Leftovers
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
— Sherlock Holmes
The Sign of the Four (1890)
The President of the United States was standing on the lawn of The White House. He was surrounded by all the most important people in the country. They were wearing their best clothes and there was an air of tremendous excitement everywhere. The President himself was gazing anxiously at the sky. He was searching for the helicopter which was due to arrive at any minute. This helicopter, as everyone knew, was bringing to The White House the eight brave astronauts who only a few hours before had rescued an American spaceship when it was attacked by a swarm of Vermicious Knids.
So, standing on the lawn were:
The President of the United States, Lancelot R Gilligrass, the most powerful man on earth.
The Vice-President, Miss Tibbs, a gigantic and fearsome lady of eighty-nine who had been the President’s nanny when he was small.
Then we had the President’s Inner Cabinet. This consisted of five men. They were the President’s closest advisers and they were all immensely powerful. Together with the President and Vice-President, these five men ran the country. They were:
The Chief of the Army: General Horsebrass, who was wearing so many medal-ribbons they covered not only the front and back of his tunic but ran all the way down his pants as well.
The Chief of the Navy, Admiral Tarbuncle, who was all at sea on land.
The Director of Sewage and Garbage Disposal, the Honourable I. M. Ponky, who was standing all by himself because nobody wanted to come too close to him, even downwind.
The Director of Public Relations and Bamboozlement, Wilbur G Pocus, known as Hocus to his friends.
The co-ordinator of Hi-Fi and Hearing Aids, Mr. Bugsy Tape, who was hiding in a hollow tree and recording every word that was spoken on The White House lawn.
There were lots of other famous and important people there, but there isn’t room to mention them all.
This section contains whatever remains of the materials when any of them end up otherwise uncategorized. I suspect that there might be something among the hypercolloids (that aren’t sweets) that might go well here, but at the moment it is looking like it will collect stories that do not involve my recipes, or any recipes at all, or ingredients that are not conventionally held to be viably edible or potable (e.g., tobacco).
And just for fun, I put the epigraph into the same font (Dodoni) as was used when it was originally published.
[Tobacco]