Inserted Missing Quotes

I find that I have been scribbling away for nearly an hour. Miss Gisborne keeps on saying that I am too prone to the insertion of unnecessary hyphens, and that it is a weakness. If a weakness it is, I intend to cherish it.

...somewhere in that intersection of broken hearts and shattered souls... broken is not the end of things, but the beginning. Maybe broken is what happens before you become unbroken. What's more, maybe our broken pieces don't fit us... maybe my pieces are the very pieces needed to mend you and your pieces are the very pieces needed to mend me, but until we've been broken we don't have the pieces to mend each other. Maybe in the offering we discover the meaning, and value of being broken. Maybe...somewhere on the planet is another somebody standing around holding a bag of all the jagged, painful pieces of themselves and they can't get whole without you... Maybe love, the real kind, the kind only wished for in whispers and the kind our hearts are hardwired to want, is opening up the bag of you... And what's more, they don't cost you anything. They're free. I paid for them in the breaking... And because you're desperate, and you've tried most everything else, you empty my bag across the floor... and...find the one piece you've been missing... And when you insert that piece into the puzzle that had become you, it stops the hemorrhage, and for the first time in maybe your whole life, the wound starts to heal.

if we incentivize conformance, people will insert contingency reserves to prevent their tasks from missing the schedule. The more granular the schedule, the larger the schedule reserves. And these reserves aggregate into even longer timelines. The more we increase planning detail and the harder we try to incentivize performance, the worse our problem becomes.

Why the red letters? Because they are spirit, and they are life - that's why. The entrance of these Words of Christ not only brings knowledge and understanding to the mind but light to the soul. These words bring to us the heart of Christ and His teachings, and they insert into us His opinion, attitude, and Spirit. The absence of these red letters eliminates all the above.

Only she can say if, in fact, she has managed to insert herself into this extremely long chain of words to modify my text, to purposely supply the missing links, to unhook others without letting it show, to say of me more than I want, more than I’m able to say.

The problem is that only thirty to forty per cent of all words can be read directly from the lips. To understand the rest you have to study the face and body language, and use your linguistic instincts and logic to insert the missing words. Thinking is as important as seeing.

Sure.” I looked over to my pet pen, but Lucky and Porky were both gone. The only one there in the pen was Ace, but he was much too big to drag around with me. “Ah, nevermind. Let’s roll,” I said to Larry. As we made our way over to the workshop, I looked up at the sky and saw that it was mid-afternoon. Then I remembered about the grand opening of the arena that Abeer told me about. I gasped as I said, “Oh, no, I hope I don’t miss the grand opening of the arena.” “Are you planning to go to that repulsive event?” Larry asked. “Repulsive?” “Oh, sorry, you must enjoy the fighting since you are a great combatant.” “You disapprove of the arena?” “It’s senseless fighting for entertainment purposes. If you didn’t know, we scientist-types abhor meaningless violence.” I nodded. “I see…” “Anyway, if you were planning to attend the grand opening, you should immediately head over there after the demonstration.” “Gotcha.” We arrived at the front of the workshop. All of Cole’s helpers and the other scientists were standing outside, and they were all surrounding Bob.   “Ah, perfect timing,” Cole said as he saw me. “Steve’s here, everyone.” I rolled up to Bob. “Whoa… your arm! It looks even cooler now!” Bob grinned. “I know, right? I can’t wait to test it out.” Bob’s upgraded arm included a redstone gem inserted

I rest my elbows on my knees, watching Paco make a complete fool of himself. Paco takes a little white golf ball and places it on top of a rubber circle inserted into the fake grass. When he swings the golf club, I wince. The club misses the ball and connects with the fake grass instead. Paco swears. The guy next to Paco takes one look at him and moves to another section. Paco tries again. This time the club connects, but his ball only rolls along the grass in front of him. He keeps trying, but each time Paco swings, he makes a complete ass out of himself. Does he think he’s hitting a hockey puck? “You done?” I ask once he’s gone through half the basket. “Alex,” Paco says, leaning on the golf club like it’s a cane. “Do ya think I was meant to play golf?” Looking Paco straight in the eye, I answer, “No.” “I heard you talkin’ to Hector. I don’t think you were mean to deal, either.” “Is that why we’re here? You’re tryin’ to make a point?” “Hear me out,” Paco insists. “I’ve got the keys to the car in my pocket and I’m not goin’ nowhere until I finish hittin’ all of these bulls, so you might as well listen. I’m not smart like you. I don’t have choices in life, but you, you’re smart enough to go to college and be a doctor or computer geek or somethin’ like that. Just like I wasn’t meant to hit golf balls, you weren’t meant to deal drugs. Let me do the drop for you.” “No way, man. I appreciate you makin’ an ass out of yourself to prove a point, but I know what I need to do,” I tell him.

Don’t I need to practice firing?” “Well, it’s not as if you’re going to shoot somebody with this. You’re just going to shoot yourself, right?” Aomame nodded. “In that case, you don’t have to practice firing. You just have to learn to load it, release the safety, and get the feel of the trigger. And anyway, where were you planning to practice firing it?” Aomame shook her head. She had no idea. “Also, how were you planning to shoot yourself? Here, give it a try.” Tamaru inserted the loaded magazine, checked to make sure the safety was on, and handed the gun to Aomame. “The safety is on,” he said. Aomame pressed the muzzle against her temple. She felt the chill of the steel. Looking at her, Tamaru slowly shook his head several times. “Trust me, you don’t want to aim at your temple. It’s a lot harder than you think to shoot yourself in the brain that way. People’s hands usually shake, and it throws their aim off. You end up grazing your skull, but not killing yourself. You certainly don’t want that to happen.” Aomame silently shook her head. “Look what happened to General Tojo after the war. When the American military came to arrest him, he tried to shoot himself in the heart by pressing the muzzle against his chest and pulling the trigger, but the bullet missed and hit his stomach without killing him. Here you had the top professional soldier in Japan, and to think he didn’t know how to kill himself with a gun! They took him straight to the hospital, he got the best care the American medical team could give him, recovered, then was tried and hanged. It’s a terrible way to die. A person’s last moments are an important thing. You can’t choose how you’re born, but you can choose how you die.

No Some Yes G. Overall Performance Objective Is the performance objective: ___ ___ ___ 1. Clear (you/others can construct an assessment to test learners)? ___ ___ ___ 2. Feasible in the learning and performance contexts (time, resources, etc)? ___ ___ ___ 3. Meaningful in relation to goal and purpose for instruction (not insignificant)? H. (Other) ___ ___ ___ 1. Your complete list of performance objectives becomes the foundation for the next phase of the design process, developing criterion-referenced test items for each objective. The required information and procedures are described in Chapter 7. Judge the completeness of given performance objectives. Read each of the following objectives and judge whether it includes conditions, behaviors, and a criterion. If any element is missing, choose the part(s) omitted. 1. Given a list of activities carried on by the early settlers of North America, understand what goods they produced, what product resources they used, and what trading they did. a. important conditions and criterion b. observable behavior and important conditions c. observable behavior and criterion d. nothing 2. Given a mimeographed list of states and capitals, match at least 35 of the 50 states with their capitals without the use of maps, charts, or lists. a. observable response b. important conditions c. criterion performance d. nothing 3. During daily business transactions with customers, know company policies for delivering friendly, courteous service. a. observable behavior b. important conditions c. criterion performance d. a and b e. a and c 4. Students will be able to play the piano. a. important conditions b. important conditions and criterion performance c. observable behavior and criterion performance d. nothing 5. Given daily access to music in the office, choose to listen to classical music at least half the time. a. important conditions b. observable behavior c. criterion performance d. nothing Convert instructional goals and subordinate skills into terminal and subordinate objectives. It is important to remember that objectives are derived from the instructional goal and subordinate skills analyses. The following instructional goal and subordinate skills were taken from the writing composition goal in Appendix E. Demonstrate conversion of the goal and subordinate skills in the goal analysis by doing the following: 6. Create a terminal objective from the instructional goal: In written composition, (1) use a variety of sentence types and accompanying punctuation based on the purpose and mood of the sentence, and (2) use a variety of sentence types and accompanying punctuation based on the complexity or structure of the sentence. 7. Write performance objectives for the following subordinate skills: 5.6 State the purpose of a declarative sentence: to convey information 5.7 Classify a complete sentence as a declarative sentence 5.11 Write declarative sentences with correct closing punctuation. Evaluate performance objectives. Use the rubric as an aid to developing and evaluating your own objectives. 8. Indicate your perceptions of the quality of your objectives by inserting the number of the objective in either the Yes or No column of the checklist to reflect your judgment. Examine those objectives receiving No ratings and plan ways the objectives should be revised. Based on your analysis, revise your objectives to correct ambiguities and omissions. P

Oh, my,” she breathed. “She’s here?” he asked unnecessarily, refusing to look. Resisting temptation. “I’m assuming it must be her; I pretty much know everyone else in the room.” There was a short silence as she inspected the newcomer thoroughly. “My heavens, I didn’t realize scientists came like this. She’s simply . . . magnificent.” “There’s not one thing that’s simple about Lily Banyon.” Evelyn’s eyes were still focused on the other end of the room. “Hmm, I think I see what you mean.” A smile played over her lips. “How utterly refreshing and fascinating—you’ll have your work cut out for you. Come, Mayor McDermott, duty calls.” “I don’t need to meet her. I already know her. Too well.” Evelyn made a tsking sound. “My, my, don’t we sound like we’ve missed our afternoon nap?” she murmured as she brushed by him, assuming the role of Coral Beach’s welcome wagon, fully equipped with bells, whistles, and highlighters. His secretary had abandoned him for the enemy. How much worse could things get? A clause should be inserted into their contracts prohibiting secretaries from treating their bosses as though they were three-year-olds. Had there been dirt instead of mocha-colored industrial carpeting underfoot, he’d have kicked it. It wasn’t anyone’s business but his if he refused to rush over and blurt, Hey, Lily, long time no see! So, tell me, what’ve you been up to since Rome, when you slammed the door in my face so hard you almost broke my nose for the second time? He was the mayor. He could do as he liked. And what he most wanted, right after making Lily Banyon disappear from his life as suddenly as she’d reappeared, was an armed guard. Then maybe he could confront her and walk away in one piece. Reluctantly, Sean turned and looked. Three seconds was all he permitted himself. Lily Banyon wasn’t going to catch him staring like some hormone-crazed adolescent. Three seconds was more than enough, though. Lily’s image burned, a brilliant flame behind his retinas. She looked good. No, make that great, incredible . . . yes, magnificent. She’d chopped off her hair, about a foot and a half of it. Her wheat-blonde locks fell in a casual, tousled style, framing her face, accentuating those startling, ice-crystal blue eyes. She looked even better than he remembered, a memory hot enough to make him lie awake at night, aching.

even the formidable deputy seemed lost for words – or was saving them for later. Maths followed a similar pattern. While the others struggled over algebra, Janet spent the first half of the lesson hidden behind her ponytail of tangled hair – ‘looking for split ends,’ she explained to Edie afterwards – until Mr Robinson, a nervous young teacher who had joined the school the previous term, invited her to come to the front of the class and write an answer to the question he had just chalked up on the board. ‘Why are you picking on me?’ Janet asked sulkily. ‘Because I don’t think you’ve been paying attention,’ Mr Robinson replied. Janet scraped back her chair, and walked to the front of the class with her shoulders swaying. ‘What’s the point trying to work out the answer when the question doesn’t make sense?’ she said, and proceeded to insert a missing bracket into Mr Robinson’s equation. ‘That was awesome,’ said Belinda later, over tea. ‘He looked so embarrassed! Oh, Janet, you should have seen him when you were walking back to your desk – his face was like strawberry jam!’ ‘I felt sorry for him,’ said Anastasia. ‘He’s so shy, and sometimes I think he’s frightened of us. Do you remember that time he was on supper duty last term and

Miss Knight.” She paused, her hand on the doorknob. She didn’t turn to face him, merely waited for him to say whatever was left to say. “I would prefer someone older. Someone less like you.” Now what the hell did that mean? Someone less like her? “You know,” he said lamely when she turned to face him quizzically. To his credit he looked as confused as she felt. “Nope. Don’t have a clue.” Her voice was so icy that her words practically froze as they left her lips. “Someone with more experience. With less personality.” “What?” “You talk too much,” he said pointedly. “Your attitude is too familiar and too sarcastic.” She opened her mouth to say something, and he held up a finger to stop her. “And that was before everything that happened in Tokyo. You’re completely irreverent and have a bizarre sense of humor. I also have no wish to hear about reality television shows, pop music, manicures, Brangelina, Star Trek, or anything that’s trending on Twitter—not even secondhand through whispered telephone conversations when my assistant thinks I’m not paying attention.” Well, he’d certainly been a lot more attentive during those half hours in the mornings than she’d given him credit for. But one thing struck her as odd. “Star Trek?” she repeated. She loved the new movies but hardly ever publicly discussed them. “You’re constantly talking about how sick you are of the Cardassians,” he elaborated uncomfortably. Her eyes widened and she stifled a laugh. “Different kind of Kardashian,” she corrected. It would be hopeless to explain it to a man who clearly had no interest in pop culture—even while every model or actress he was publicly photographed with inserted him into the very scene he was so scornful of. Quite frankly, she was impressed that he even knew about the Cardassians in Star Trek, which attested to a level of geekdom that she would never have suspected of him. “So you’re looking for the anti-me?” “It shouldn’t be so hard to find the complete opposite of you. You are quite . . .” His brow lowered as he tried to find the correct word. “Singular.” “Thank you,” she said, ridiculously flattered until a closer glance at his straight face told her that it hadn’t been a compliment. Her fledgling smile died, and she once again—as she often did in his presence—fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Okay, so you’re looking for an old, boring, and competent assistant,” she itemized, and his lips thinned but he said nothing. “I’ll get on that right away, sir.

Connie's other job was proof-editing which she did very badly. Transferring the author's corrections to a clean sheet of proofs was something Connie was unable to do without missing an average of three corrections a page, or transcribing newly inserted material all wrong... she put angry authors' letters about the mutilation of their books under the cushion of her chair to deal with later

So, I invited my brother to go over to the coast to have a beer, check out the women, and what does he tell me? Not interested in doing that—he wants to go to this little bar in Virgin River. But he doesn’t tell me why. What an incredible coincidence that you happen to be here, Miss McIntyre.” She laughed at him, finding him darling and playful, two things Luke definitely was not. “Please, it’s just Shelby. He knew I’d be here. It’s almost a standing date.” “Is it, now? Is there another one of you at home?” “I’m afraid not,” she said. “But I understand there are more brothers.” “Aiden, Colin and Paddy. But I’m the richest and most handsome.” “And the biggest pain in the ass,” Luke inserted. “Where do you fall in the pack?” Shelby asked. “Number four. Luke’s the oldest.” He looked over his shoulder at Luke. “He’s very old, you know. And I think my family and your family were at war for thousands of years,” he teased. He sipped his beer. “Yeah, the McIntyre-Riordan wars. Sure am glad that’s over.” “And none of you married?” “At last count, two of them tried it and blew it. They insist it wasn’t their fault,” he said, grinning. Luke was going to take him home and beat the shit out of him. But Shelby was loving it. The sly grin on the general’s face was unmistakable and the amused crinkle at the corners of Jack’s eyes suggested he was getting too big a kick out of this as well. And

What did you say?” Henry grated. “I said shut up, Henry.” Rachel’s voice was still soft, but the glint in her eyes was fighting mean. “I’ve put up with your cussedness for nigh on nine years. No more. You apologize to Loretta Jane this instant.” “Or you’ll do what?” Rachel lifted a challenging brow. “Well, I reckon you’re too big for me to grab you by the heels and bash your brains. Guess I’ll have to blow them out. Now apologize. I won’t have that kind of talk in my house.” “Your house?” “That’s right.” Henry did an admirable job of trying to appear amused. Placing his hands on his hips, he bent one knee and eyed the rifle. “Rachel, darlin’, you have a gun right now. Here shortly, you’re gonna have to put it down and cook. And when you do, I’m gonna beat the sass plumb out of you. Now I suggest you be the one to apologize. If you do it convincin’ enough, maybe I’ll forgit this ever happened.” Loretta figured the bluff would probably work. Aunt Rachel had never been long on guts, and Loretta didn’t see her getting a goodly supply in the space of ten minutes. Rachel surprised her, though. Instead of apologizing, she set her jaw and raised her chin. “Henry, if you touch me when I’m cookin’, I’ll rip you from stem to bow with my butcher knife. I’ve had it up to my gullet with you.” “Give me that gun!” Henry stomped toward her. Rachel took quick aim. The explosion of noise nearly scared Loretta out of her skin. Henry jumped straight up, clearing the floor by several inches. “Holy Mother, you near shot my foot off, you damned fool woman!” “Next time, I won’t miss.” Henry sputtered, so mad he looked fit to bust. “Rachel, I swear, I’ll give you the hidin’ of your life for this.” “Touch her, Uncle Henry, and I’ll knock you senseless with a chunk of firewood,” Loretta inserted. “And if she don’t do a good job of it, I’ll finish it for her!” Amy yelled from the loft ladder. “Good for you, Ma! Give the old wart toad what for!” Rachel returned the Spencer to the rack. “Well, Henry? It sounds like three to one. You gonna apologize to Loretta Jane or not?

Holy Mother, you near shot my foot off, you damned fool woman!” “Next time, I won’t miss.” Henry sputtered, so mad he looked fit to bust. “Rachel, I swear, I’ll give you the hidin’ of your life for this.” “Touch her, Uncle Henry, and I’ll knock you senseless with a chunk of firewood,” Loretta inserted. “And if she don’t do a good job of it, I’ll finish it for her!” Amy yelled from the loft ladder. “Good for you, Ma! Give the old wart toad what for!” Rachel returned the Spencer to the rack. “Well, Henry? It sounds like three to one. You gonna apologize to Loretta Jane or not?

Holy Mother, you near shot my foot off, you damned fool woman!” “Next time, I won’t miss.” Henry sputtered, so mad he looked fit to bust. “Rachel, I swear, I’ll give you the hidin’ of your life for this.” “Touch her, Uncle Henry, and I’ll knock you senseless with a chunk of firewood,” Loretta inserted. “And if she don’t do a good job of it, I’ll finish it for her!” Amy yelled from the loft ladder. “Good for you, Ma! Give the old wart toad what for!” Rachel returned the Spencer to the rack. “Well, Henry? It sounds like three to one. You gonna apologize to Loretta Jane or not?” She shrugged. “I reckon you can leave, if that strikes your fancy. But if you’re stayin’, you’ll apologize before you have your breakfast.” Henry doubled his fists, trembling. Loretta moved toward the hearth and grabbed a chunk of wood, just in case she needed it. Amy swung off the ladder, ready to do the same. “I swear, I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to,” Henry rasped. “Women lippin’ off and threatenin’ a man like they don’t got good sense! I could take on the three of you and roll a smoke while I was at it.” “Then make like a frog and hop to it,” Amy challenged. “Otherwise, you tell Loretta you’re sorry like Ma says.” Henry hesitated, as if he were considering his options, such as they were. “As if I’d really hurt a baby!” he snorted. “If Loretta Jane don’t got the sense to know better, then I surely do apologize.” “Accepted,” Loretta murmured. Henry jerked up his left suspender and raked his hand through his hair, looking at the hole Rachel had shot in the puncheon. “What in hell you gonna tell people happened to your floor, missy?” Rachel smiled. “Why, I’ll tell them how quick you got in and fixed it, Henry. We can’t have holes in the floor, can we?

Power—To gain social status and prestige Purpose—To have meaning and direction in my life Romance—To have intense, exciting love in my life Safety—To be safe and secure Security—To protect loved ones, my community, and/or my nation Self-control—To be disciplined in my own actions Self-esteem—To feel good about myself Self-sufficient—To take care of myself without being dependent on others Spirituality—To grow and mature spiritually by connecting to things bigger than myself Stability—To have a life that stays relatively consistent Stimulation—To actively seek out adventure and create a life filled with novelty and variety Tolerance—To accept other people, as well as opinions and beliefs differing from my own Tradition—To respect and preserve the past and maintain order through tradition and customs Universalism—To create a sense of harmony among different people and preventing war and conflict; to create a sense of unity with nature and protecting it Virtue—To live a morally pure and excellent life Wealth—To have plenty of money Insert your own unlisted value: Insert your own unlisted value:

i know i am in love again when" light shakes into the cobwebs woven over all the empty doorframes. when a nearby car’s bass is a feigned serenade & the moon seems like a dirty thing. passing fuselage & hospital lights glint & i’m turned on thinking they flash for me. me, whose favorite window features a view that’s mostly ground. me, who’s quiet, swaddled, blanket-borne in the fucking eve, waiting on a call from my only lover, or a friend six states away. the space between saying how much i miss everyone i know & pressing my forehead to my knee is usually smaller than i think. the closest body of water calls itself a river, but it’s stagnant. i call myself a lot to give, but that’s an exaggeration. walking the bank, i trace ripples—lamp-lit contours that fade into murk. i am two breaths away from saying i don’t understand happiness when the voice on the other end of the line asks if it’s okay to hang up now. what is the opposite of blank noise? insert that excess here. i want to live off it. Raena Shirali, No More Potluck. Issue 33: Solitude

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if on that particular day, because of too much caffeine or a side effect of some medication he might have taken earlier or simply nerves, Major General Peter Young's hand had shaken just a trifle... Would the border have shifted a fraction of an inch up or down, inserting here, deleting there, and if so, might this involuntary change have affected my fate or that of my relatives? Would one more fig tree have remained on the Greek side, for instance, or an extra fig tree have been included into Turkish territory? I try to imagine that inflection point in time. As transient as a scent on the breeze, the briefest pause, the slightest hesitation, the squeak of a chinagraph pencil on the shiny surface of the map, a trail of green leaving its irrevocable mark with everlasting consequences for the lives of generations past, present and yet to come. History intruding on the future. Our future...

I can’t stop cleaning and I have a monster inside my brain and I miss you and Sloan is falling apart and his parents won’t take him off life support, so his organs are rotting. I can’t get all the lines right on the carpet with the vacuum and Stuntman is in a kennel and I haven’t seen him in days, and I just need you to let me clean this fucking apartment!” I’m not sure how much of it he heard, if any. I was crying so hard I could barely understand myself. He just held me and caressed my hair, and for the first time in weeks the velociraptor hunted other prey. Josh made me weak. Or strong. It was hard to tell anymore what I was without my coping mechanism. At least when I rode the beast, I got shit done. And now I was nothing but an emotional mess. But at least the mess was mine. Why did he have this effect on me? He had this way of waking up dormant parts of my soul. He ripped through me and let everything in with him like a storm surge. I took on water. And at the same time, something told me if I let him, he’d keep me afloat. He wouldn’t let me sink. I’d never felt this vulnerable and safe with anyone. I felt hot and shaky. I gasped and clutched his shirt until the crying spasms stopped. He held me so tight my knees could have given out and I wouldn’t have fallen an inch. “I can’t be the only one who has their shit together,” I whispered. His chest rumbled as he spoke. “It doesn’t look like you have your shit together…” I snorted. “Josh, please.” I looked up at him, my hands trembling on his collarbone. “I need you to insert yourself here. Go talk to his parents. They’ll listen to you.” He looked at me like seeing me cry was agony. The longing on his face was razor blades to my heart. His sad eyes, the set of his mouth, his knit brows. He loved me almost as much as I loved him, and I knew I was hurting him. I knew he thought I was enough. But I wasn’t enough. How could one of me be any kind of substitute for the half dozen kids he’d always wanted? It just couldn’t. The math didn’t work. The logic wasn’t sound. He wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll go. Just, sit down or something. Stop cleaning.” He dipped his head to catch my eyes. “Are you okay? You’re shaking.” He put a hand over mine to still the tremor against his chest, and the closeness of him made me whole for the first time in weeks. “I’m fine,” I said, swallowing. “Just hurry, okay?” He looked at me for a long moment, like he was trying to memorize my face or steal an extra second to hold me. Then he turned for the bathroom. When he walked away from me, the absence of his body pressed into mine felt like I’d lost my clothes and I stood naked and exposed to the elements. I missed him. No amount of time lessened it. It made it worse. My heart was a neglected building, and every day I weathered a fierce storm that dripped through my roof, flooded my floors, and broke my windows, and the disrepair just made me weaker and closer to collapse. The water turned on in the bathroom and I looked around the apartment, my compulsion raging back with a fury now that he was gone. At least I could do this for him. I could take care of his space, give it order. Wash his clothes and his blankets. Make things smell clean, turn his home into someplace he wanted to be. Do this thing that he obviously couldn’t do for himself at the moment.

There is scarcely a book of mine that didn't have The Pigeon Tunnel at some time or another as its working title. Its origin is easily explained. I was in my mid-teens when my father decided to take me on one of his gambling sprees to Monte Carlo. Close by the old casino stood the sporting club, and at its base lay a stretch of lawn and a shooting range looking out to sea. Under the lawn ran small, parallel tunnels that led in a row to the sea's edge. Into them were inserted live pigeons that had been hatched and trapped on the casino roof. Their job was to flutter their way along the pitch-dark tunnel until they emerged in the Mediterranean sky as targets for well-lunched sporting gentlemen who were standing or lying in wait with their shotguns. Pigeons who were missed or merely winged then did what pigeons do. They returned to the place of their birth on the casino roof, where the same traps awaited them. Quite why this image has haunted me for so long is something the reader is perhaps better able to judge than I am.

The alliance of character and rationality is a serious question. The alliance involves both agents. The character is needed because logic will give you the structure, but will never tell you what should be inserted in it. The character is necessary because logic will tell you what is missing, but will not add anything new. The character is needed because logic will show you the optimal process of making things done without ever introducing how to make things done better. Logic will criticise everything, but never create anything. Logic alone is the tool to judge, plan or think, but it is invisible. Logic cares about your sentiments as the fork cares about your taste.

Mr Locke...took a long, slender pick from the unrolled bag and, bending over slightly, inserted it into the lock. It was a steel-cased lock with a smooth, brass knob of around three inches wide and a brass plate around the singular keyhole. Mounted into the door frame was another steel fixture, forming the second half of the lock. Recognising the type of lock, Percy knew the key’s function was to throw the lock’s bolt into dead lock, thus securing the door. Such a design would also include an internal, smaller knob sliding back and forth, drawing back the bolt. A snib, jutting out from the case on the internal side of the door, could be compressed to keep the bolt in an open position, thus allowing one to open and close the door freely. “Do be so kind as to keep an eye out for the return of our friend the constable.” Locke pulled his pocket watch out with his other hand to glance upon it. “We have nine minutes.” “This is breaking and entering!” Mr Maxwell cried, hurrying up the steps. “Miss Trent said such was forbidden by the Society.” “Unless there is a sufficiently justifiable reason for doing so,” Mr Locke replied, inserting a second pick into the lower half of the lock. “The welfare of our client is a sufficiently justifiable reason; do you not think so, Mr Maxwell?” “His welfare?” Mr Maxwell enquired, confused. Miss Dexter, wholly fascinated by what the illusionist was doing, stepped closer still. She softly enquired, “Do you suspect some harm may have come to Mr Dorsey, Mr Locke?” “I do not know but Mr Colby was very keen we should not speak with him. Furthermore, Miss Trent’s note stated her telephone conversation with Mr Dorsey was abruptly ended, by him, when another—angry—voice spoke,” Mr Locke explained. There was a sharp click as the bolt sprang back into the lock’s casing. Mr Locke smiled broadly. “Our constable friend is back.” Mr Maxwell looked panic sticken. “It’s only been a minute.” “Ah, that will be the Bow Street police station,” Locke replied as he turned the door knob. “Also, they tend to keep a closer eye upon the more affluent residences; greater targets for thieves, you know,” Mr Locke stated as he pushed the door open and ushered both Mr Maxwell and Miss Dexter inside. He’d just closed the door, after slipping in himself, when the constable reached the bottom of the steps and peered up at the porch. Mr Locke stood to the side of the door and watched as the constable, seemingly satisfied all was well, walked away. A glance down at the internal part of the lock confirmed Mr Locke’s earlier assumptions about it. His slender hand slid the smaller brass knob along to lock the bolt in place once more.

STEP THREE To maintain interest in his implausible story, Trump will promise that more information will soon be produced to prove that [INSERT CLAIM] is correct. “I will tell you about that sometime in the very near future,” he might say during a Rose Garden press conference or other media availability. His preferred time frame is “two weeks.” He will vow to share the information “as soon as I can, as soon as possible with the American people so the full truth will be known and exposed.” Trump will lead people to believe the missing information may come in the form of an email, a video, a pending announcement, or a report. To avoid answering questions at this step, Trump may even say, “I’ll keep you in suspense.