As he brushed his recalcitrant and tried to pick an accretion of egg from his best tie, Joe wondered by what aberration he had been included in this gathering. He was not a demagogue, despot, gourmand, insurgent, reprobate or virtuoso. Indeed, he was almost their antithesis: a humble shoemaker who banged in the tacks with acumen and alacrity, and with a punctilious regard for setting soles straight. His life was ascetic, his politics nonpartisan. His prediliction was for all that was staid, stolid and utilitarian. Hapless, he stared at the vestige of the egg, which for some reason he could not dispel, emend, expunge, expurgate or palliate, only exacerbate, and sighed.
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