I remember back during my days of adventure as a young huntsman I would fly out to the African rainforest and sometimes Hopkins and I would hunt for wild boars. During one of my outings in Africa I met a wise tribesman who claimed to be a shaman capable of curing even the most brutal of ailments. When I returned to merry old England I received a telephone call from my friend Hopkins who sounded to be in great distress, apparently he had been out with his fellow scallywags all through the night, getting drunk on laughter and scotch, and sometime during the night (though he doesn't remember the specifics) he had a tattoo of a mermaid grafted unto his right ankle. After scolding my friend I told him that I had found a solution to his predicament, I invited him over for some earl gray tea and to go over the details of his problem. When he arrived I offered him a smoke, which he gratefully accepted. I told him of my travels and of the wise man I met. Who had given me a vial of thick, foul smelling ooze, and gone back to his hovel. Hopkins quickly snatched the vial from my grasp and rubbed the ooze on his ankle, and by George the tattoo was gone. in the later years of my life i returned many times to that rainforest, and yet i was never able to find the wise man again. The moral of this story is, Do not get a tattoo unless you know an African shaman, for it may be with you for the rest of your days.
Sincerely Eliot Hopkins and Herkimer Reyd