Torture

WE HEARD the story the other day of an American who was, a few years ago, one of the top editors of an English-language daily newspaper in a major city of a Far Eastern country which shall be nameless for this tale. He was an able editor, as this breed goes, and he did his duty pretty much of the time, except when recurring attacks of a terrible illness overtook him. The name of this illness was--no guesses allowed--alcoholism. One night he was looking up the paper for the A.M. edition, and a boozy brain-wave hit him: Why not do over the lead editorial and tell the truth about a political brouhaha then in the making in the country. He did. The paper hit the streets, and politicos all over the country hit Disaster Buttons. Everyone was looking for Editor, but he was a step or two ahead of them, having left his typewriter in search of potables wherewith to continue his drunk. Finally he went home, and awoke hung over. He went to the door, and saw a veritable army, weapons drawn, come to arrest him as a lying Americano. And they did, and they tortured him, and he languished in a really gruesome prison, and was sprung finally, by the Grace of God, and took a plane out of that country, never to return.