^*There had been half a jar of elderly mayonnaise, a piece of very old cheese, and a tomato with white mold growing on it. Since during the day the pantry of the palace of Sto Lat normally contained fifteen whole stags, one hundred brace of partridges, fifty hogsheads of butter, two hundred jugs of hares, seventy-five sides of beef, two miles of assorted sausages, various fowls, eighty dozen eggs, several Circle Sea sturgeon, a vat of caviar and an elephant’s leg stuffed with olives, Cutwell had learned once again that one universal manifestation of raw, natural magic throughout the universe is this: that any domestic food store, raided furtively in the middle of the night, always contains, no matter what its daytime inventory, half a jar of elderly mayonnaise, a piece of very old cheese, and a tomato with white mold growing on it.