In flowing sherbet pledge our easeful sage.
ALGOL.
APPROPRIATOR OF TUBERS.
At a time when not a potato was to be found in all Kensington, the Food Controller decided to form the Potato Appropriations Department. I was put at its head and received my orders direct from that supreme official.
Up to the moment of being called upon to take up this important post I was a Captain on the Staff of an Artillery Headquarters, and my ignorance of the finer points of the potato was profound. It was therefore with some trepidation that I proceeded to hold a lengthy consultation with the Controller on the subject of the organisation and general duties of my department. My official title, I was told, was Appropriator of Tubers. I was further informed that, until the department got into the swing of routine, it had better work under the direct supervision of the Food Controller. I agreed.
I was then taken into the Controller's confidence with regard to a certain matter, and it was suggested that I should see to it.
I demurred on the ground that I did not yet feel myself a sufficient authority on the potato to carry out this particular duty; but the Controller overcame my objection by sending for a Mrs. Marrow, an expert on the Potato Utilisation Board. She appeared, a plump middle-aged lady, attired appropriately in a costume of workmanlike simplicity.
Thus reinforced, I ordered the car and drove to Whitechapel. At the end of a street, whose gutters were full of vegetable garbage I stopped, and, descending, beckoned imperiously to an adjacent policeman.