No compression, near miss

Pistols need no powder if you load them with insults. I proved this in a duel at Dresden. I aimed and then I called him a turnip. He fell to the grass in a dead faint. His seconds took it up with me, but I had a spare insult for each.

An elephant in Delhi once forgot something, and the shame nearly killed him. He came to me in tears. I sat him down and asked gentle questions for a week. It turned out to be the name of his aunt. We sent a letter, she wrote back, and the city danced until its walls fell.

Stars fall, as we all know, but few men catch one. I held out my dinner plate over Vienna and took a bright one on the rim. It hissed, it rolled, and it cooked my egg. I ate the egg and threw the star back before anyone could notice.

Walrus hunting bored me, so I took up walrus diplomacy. Off Greenland I met a big old bull with a face just like my uncle's. We shared a herring, and we both said little. By dawn we had signed a trade deal. He now handles my affairs in the north.

Gunpowder makes a fine spice on a cold.