"It's a good thing the Secret Service isn't in the room," the President said, laughing, "or they would have wrestled that paper clip to the ground."

Everyone laughed politely. It was no accident that the three water pitchers always ended up, bunched at the far end of the long table. Whoever sat next to the President somehow found himself nudging any close pitcher away. The Security Council had accidentally discovered that some classified documents were water soluble when someone had left a water pitcher near the President's elbow. The Secretary of State read the document he had been handed, and in solemn tones, reflecting the guttural accents of his German youth, he said, "It was to be expected. We should have known."

He removed the single paper clip from the document and handed three loose sheets of gray paper to the President of the United States, who cut his thumb on their edges.

Everyone agreed that paper could be very sharp. The President asked for water for the cut. The Secretary of Defense filled one glass half full. He passed it up the table.

"Thank you," said the President, knocking the glass into the lap of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose turn it was to sit next to the President, but who complained that somehow the Secretary of the Army always missed his turn.

The Secretary of Defense poured another glass and hand-delivered it up to the head of the table where the President put his bleeding thumb into the glass.

"Be careful, sir," said the Secretary of State. "That document is water soluble also."

"What?" said the President, taking his thumb out of the glass and holding the papers in both hands. The right thumb went through the document like a spoon through fresh, warm oatmeal. The pages suddenly had a long thumb hole in them. "Oh," said the President of the United States.