Thus was he musing intently in great disregard for his path and consequently walked directly into a wall breaking his nose in twelve places and bloodying his lips. In a swirl of confusion he heard the whistles of the local police. He tried to pull himself up kowing that in Singapore, bleeding on the sidewalk is a misdemeanor, a crime punishables by forty strokes of a hollow read upon the bare buttocks.

And this would have been his fate had it not been for the spittle wielding Hansel Daggerfjord who chose that moment to draw off their attention.