[FOsen]

“S-so there wasn’t ever any magic?” asked Harold, his lip trembling, “but what about Hibernia’s Passive Coping spells?” “Those were there for the readers, Harold,” Actuaria replied calmly. “As I’ve explained many times, your journey was nothing more than a rather clumsy allegorical overlay to the rigorous analysis of statistical probability theory presented within these pages” (ibid., Chapter one, footnotes 22 - 304a).

“B-b-but what about the Dark Lord?” “Well, Harold, he’d simply calculated funding rates for the retirement portfolio based upon an overly aggressive profitability assessment of the investment trajectory (see Appendix G) - as you were able to deduce, once you'd finally mastered the Exhaustive Algorhythms.”

“And now,” said Actuaria, “I’m afraid it’s time for you to return home to your Aunt’s and Uncle’s, to that little room under the stairs, until next school year.” “Oh, thank you!” cried Harold, bolting for the door.

[Susan McLean]

Frank, I found that weirdly compelling.

Susan

[Terese Coe]

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

While it may be true that our story has had no middle, one may choose its beginning point and ending point with some exactitude, yet both have grown so extenuated as to preclude the existence of that part which should connect them, in the way, say, that a single strand of spaghetti may be engaged upon and nicely finished up, with a only long passage of embarrassment and social uncertainty in between, dripping sauce on one’s chin and shirt front and leaving no doubt, amongst the gathered dinner partners (who did not, mercifully, appear in the intervening chapters) that the object of their approbation was, in fact, you; thus, I must conclude this unsatisfactory narrative with the bald information the Geoffrey did successfully prevail upon Madge to relinquish the hair-clasp that was assumed to have been stolen but was, happily, only misplaced and recovered in the barest nick of time.

Sam, the laughter poured out of me at your parenthetical! Sheer genius.

BTW, that last phrase, from Larkin's Required Writing, was stolen at a writer's forum without the slightest attempt at credit to him (in answer to the same type of question--How do you do it?--Larkin had answered with it) by a highly celebrated American memoirist--two nights ago in Manhattan, let the record show. [I add this since the subject of stealing from the best came up in a nearby thread.] Oh well. I suppose she might have thought of it herself.

[George Simmers]

“We come now,” said the dapper Belgian, his bald head gleaming with its usual aplomb, “to the questions that must be certainly resolved if the perpetrator of this terrible crime is to be unmasked. Firstly, how was the strychnine introduced into Colonel Marchmain's egg before it was boiled? Second, why did the mysterious woman use ketchup to smear that dramatic warning on the bedsheets? And most crucial of all, mon cher Hastings, we must ask why the kitchen clock was turned back by precisely one hour and twenty-seven minutes. Those indeed are the questions that require an answer.” The great detective paused here, giving a shrug that seemed uncharacteristic, yet still decidedly continental. “And I must confess that for once I have not – how you say? - the foggiest. Ah well, you win some and you lose some.”