Free The Humpty Dumpty Tragedy by Herschel Cozine

The Humpty Dumpty Tragedy
    By Herschel Cozine
    Hi. Nathaniel P. Osgood III, here. I usually get paid for the work I do for clients here in town. But I once had a case in which I was my own client. Ergo, no income. Believe me, I earned every penny!
    You have all heard the story of Humpty Dumpty and his unfortunate fall. It was big news back when it happened. A walking, talking egg is indeed a phenomenon even in this part of the world. The story got front page treatment in The Nurseryland Tattler , our local rag. The pictures were unsettling to be sure. Oh, I have seen broken eggs before, but usually in frying pans; not splattered all over the street. And the soldiers and horses working over this mess made for great TV. The ratings were sky high.
    Now why, you ask, would they even attempt to put this thing back together? A valid question. It was obvious to everyone that Humpty was beyond help. But we are dealing with the government here, and Government Intelligence is an oxymoron. The whole affair was hopeless and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
    As you might imagine, the incident created quite a controversy. People wrote irate letters to the editor protesting the use of the military, particularly the horses. Even in this crazy town where almost anything goes, the use of horses as paramedics defied logic.
    And then, of course, there were the usual letters from those who made light of the situation. “He was a good egg,” one wrote, with “a sunnyside up disposition.” Another wrote that if he hadn’t been so easygoing and been more “hardboiled,” this never would have happened. Perhaps the sickest of all was the one who wrote, “he was such a shy egg that it was good to see him finally come out of his shell. He’d be a shoo-in for the lead in Shakespeare’s ‘Omelet’.” Such callousness is indeed shocking. A flagrant disregard for the feelings of the survivors. I laughed out loud when I read it.
    The tragic event slowly faded into history, being replaced by other equally important incidents such as the blackbird attack on members of the royal family and terrible abuse of the “shoe” children. A plaque on the wall where Humpty fell is all that is left. And even that has been vandalized in recent years by graffiti artists and youngsters who have little respect for our heritage and way of life.
    But it is time to set the record straight. I have been sworn to secrecy all these years, caught in a cover up that was not of my doing. Now, with all of the principals gone, I can speak freely. I hope this will help you to understand some of the strange unexplained activities surrounding the event, particularly the seemingly ridiculous actions of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.
    Humpty Dumpty was not what he appeared to be. He was…well, let me start at the beginning.
    I had been troubled by the case from the start. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men had rushed to the scene where Humpty fell, immediately cordoned off the area and worked frantically to put the poor creature together again. I asked myself, Why? This was not a federal case. It was a matter for the local authorities. There had been many cases like this in the past. Jack and Jill, for instance. The king’s army did nothing in that case. Nor did they rush to the rescue of the poor pussy in the well. There was something peculiar here. Something smelled rotten, and it wasn’t an egg. I decided to investigate further.
    I started by doing some research on Mister Dumpty. No one knew where he came from. He had just appeared one day, a fully grown egg, if you will. He could be seen almost daily sitting on the wall, but where he went when he wasn’t on the wall was uncertain. He had no known address and had no occupation. Well, he didn’t need an occupation. He was, after all, an egg. And there isn’t much call for an egg in the working world.
    An egg. I began to question this shortly after I started looking into the affair. I had