Reject

  * Author's note.

  A bored Folklore could be an occupational hazard. Once Dave was caught by him in an unwary moment and summoned to attend his office immediately.

  "What did Sir want?" enquired Grey afterwards as they crossed on the stairs to the Executive Corridor.

  "A 'brainstorming session'."

  Grey rolled his eyes heavenward. "I'll kill that bastard Burton!"

  Dave's synapses, already overloaded by attempts to make lateral connections, fused altogether. "What?" was all he could manage.

  "Burton! Gave him an American management book to mug up in readiness for his visit to the States next month."

  "So that's where he got it from!"

  "Anyway, how did you get on?"

  "Mainly, he stormed at the feebleness of my brain!"

  "My turn next!" Grey sighed. "I hope he doesn't find mine to be too much of a disappointment, it might hinder my campaign to get an office Upstairs."

  "Well, whatever you do, keep off the subject of low density foams."

  "Why?"

  Dave grinned. "As near as I can remember, the conversation went like this":

  Folklore: "Tell me the first thought to enter your mind."

  Dave: "It's mince day in the canteen."

  F: "Idiot! The first thought about foam."

  D: "Oh!. Er..."

  F: "Get on with it!"

  D: "Um..."

  F: "I haven't got all day!"

  D: "Got it!"

  F: "Good man! That's the spirit!"

  D: "You know we make foam by causing bubbles to form in a gelling rubbery matrix?"

  F: "Go on!"

  D: "How about if we go about it differently and coat bubbles of air with compound. We could make super low density foams. Quite revolutionary."

  F: "Well, what use would they be?"

  D: "Not much, I suppose. They wouldn't have any hardness and their physical properties would be negligible."

  F: "And that's all you can come up with?"

  D: "I'm afraid so."

  F: "I'm very disappointed in you. Go away and come back when you have thought of something useful."

  (He was ahead of his time. He had just invented HX - high expansion foam - which is used for firefighting. Bubbles of air are coated with a detergent film by blowing through a nylon net which is continuously sprayed with solution, making 50 cubic metres per minute of bubbles. Fire brigades have great fun playing with it!).

  "Once a King, always a King, but once a Knight is enough."

  Anon