28

He continues with the rise of Napoleon the Cat through a recount of the various battles of a glorious campaign. The priests continue to stare. He decides to embellish. Rather than have Napoleon declare himself emperor, he has Napoleon become a leader of organized crime. Perhaps not that much of an embellishment, he thinks. Napoleon, the emperor of France (Chartreux, in cat terms) becoming Don Napoleon of _____? He can't think of a mafia territory that would sound good with Cat as a substitute prefix. It doesn't matter. He doesn't know, for sure, whether the three priests know about the real Napoleon. Who, in the world, doesn't know of Napoleon? And, of course, that's just it: who in the world he comes from? And are we, he wonders mutely, in the world he comes from?
Oh, what the hell. He tells of Don Napoleon's cornering the construction industry through "persuasive" dealings with other "colleagues" in the waste disposal management industry, thus building an empire which, though not in the habit of calling attention to itself, is nevertheless ... not to be ignored...
If the priests object to, or even recognize, the, ah, shifting of historical narrative consistency, their faces remain inscrutable.