A certain . . . a certain noble earl had need of a handsome, young, female carcass -- for which specimen I would be excellently paid provided it be fresh and that the feet were shapely and unblemished . . . . By nightfall, when I set about my work, it was raining. Gratefully, this inclemency of weather favoured the expedition of my efforts: for not a single hackney passed to retard the steady progress of my digging. Indeed, so quickly did I work, that I had broke into the box, bagged my quarry, replaced the soil, and rode off in my cart, ere I bethought myself to see whether the feet of the poor creature would answer the intent of my commission.Thus begins the long association of a young medical doctor and his hilariously depraved American descendants with the notorious Earl of Griswold, a 17th-century libertine and connoisseur of smells whose discovery of an elixir in the Florida swamps will keep his evil presence alive for the next three-hundred years.