Monday, February the 6th, 2006
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Pamphlet, Duckpond The Immense, Serialisation of, Episode twelve of twenty-six
The tins of soup were stored in a plethora of larders dotted throughout the House. Although the location of each larder seemed random—two adjacent here, another just down the corridor and around the corner, one tiny, solitary larder in the west wing—in fact they were distributed according to a system so stupendous and abstruse that only Mrs Purgative understood it. Blodgett claimed to, and no one was confident enough of their own knowledge to challenge him.
Aminadab, having arrived at the House only hours before, was unaware that there was even a system in the first place. All he knew for certain was that he was slumped, queasy with exhaustion, on the floor of a larder stacked floor to ceiling with soup tins marked “Number Three”. He had given up the quest for Euwige. Half his luggage had been abandoned somewhere back in an ill-lit corridor which stank of porridge, though there was no porridge to be found in it. He still had the other half of his belongings with him, and was rummaging frantically in one of his satchels for the bag of gob-stoppers he had packed at the start of his journey, three weeks ago.
As his trembling fingers lit at last upon the crumpled bag, he heard footsteps approaching. Lurching to his feet, he threw open the door of the larder in desperation. Had Euwige come to rescue him?