How I faced down the Ottoman Army or Omelets anyone?

Good evening, all of you. I'll have Caravan tea this evening, thank you. Oh and could you possibly bring extra jam? Thank you. Now, let me see, I believe you requested to hear my tale of how I faced down the Ottoman army armed with only a derringer pistol and a baker's whisk. Come to think of it, it's rather odd that I had the baker's whisk with me, which was a complete coincidence, but I must say, it was most serendipitous that I did!

I was touring the Mediterranean on holiday and had heard about a plant that was indigenous to an island off the coast of Greece that was rumoured to cure any disease known to man. I decided to make a stop at this island, the name a Latin term meaning "Toe of Apollo" in order to investigate. One balmy, sunny afternoon, I was collecting samples of the plant along one of the picturesque hillsides and enjoying the breeze off the sea when a young, swarthy lad approached me and asked, in broken English, for me to come and see his mother, who was apparently quite ill. Naturally I accepted and when I arrived at the home, which was really little more than a shed sitting under two large olive trees, the woman was laying in bed moaning most dramatically. After a thorough examination, for I don't give any that are not, I derived that she was suffering from what we in the medical profession call palpitations of the digestive system. It's actually quite common and not the least bit life threatening, which this poor woman refused to believe. Considering the local superstition about the plant, which was merely an alteration of the herb of mint, I decided to make her a tea from the leaves I'd collected and laced it with a dose of laudanum. The effect was, of course, immediate and she calmed down. In gratitude, she gave me a small derringer pistol with a pearl grip handle that she explained her father had acquired on his ill fated trip to the Colonies. He died shortly after returning home and this, the only possession of value he had, went to his daughter, the only child he had. I placed it in my reticule and quite forgot about it.

After I left the island I had decided to continue my holiday in Istanbul, an exotic city I'd always intended to visit as a friend of my father resided there and was currently attempting to recreate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Unfortunately, when I arrived, my father's friend was having a wee bit of problem with locust and the garden was a miserable failure. I took up residence in a local hotel with what I believed to be rather excellent accommodations, though it was not up to British standards. One must sacrifice in the name of exploration however and I was feeling a grand sense of adventure, so it was all quite satisfactory. My first involvement with the Ottoman Army came on the day I had taken it upon myself to teach the cook in the hotel how to make a proper omelet. Her cooking skills were moderate at best and the eggs not nearly fluffy as to stand up to any culinary taste in any country. It was my own generosity that put me in the position to learn that the Ottoman army had arrived in Istanbul and was planning on moving Westward toward Eastern Europe. Well as you can guess, as a citizen of the Queen's Empire, I could not stand for that and as I was whisking away at the eggs, an idea came to me. You see, one of the officer's aids of the Ottoman army came into the kitchen while I was teaching the cook how to make an omelet and mistook me for the head chef. It was quite natural for him to do so, I suppose, as the hotel bragged openly about making the finest European cuisine in Istanbul. When the officer's aid ordered breakfast for the leaders of the Ottoman army, I acted immediately and pretended to be the cook, much to the chagrin of the actual cook who was standing right next to me. I managed to keep her silent by stepping, quite forcefully, on her toes.

When the young man left the kitchen, I hurriedly reached for my reticule, for I am never without it. I did understand that the cook would be a bit concerned, and probably not so cooperative after I'd crushed her poor foot, so I was looking for a bit of money with which to buy her silence. When she spotted the pearl handled grip of the derringer poking out of the top of my reticule, she seemed quite enamoured of it so I used the pistol to pay her. We gathered as many eggs as we could, and I must tell you that I also collected some that had been set aside because they'd gone bad. I mixed the eggs together, whisking them into a frothy concoction and separated it into several pans for the purpose of making omelets for all the leaders of the Ottoman Army. Later in the day, when they succumbed to food poisoning, I did feel a slight twinge of guilt, but as I figured it would be more harmful to allow them to pass through Istanbul rather than poisoning them, my oath still held. They were sick so long from the eggs that it halted the Ottoman army in its very tracks and the locals began to speak of it being the will of Allah, their god, that the army not proceed at this time. As soon as I was able, I removed myself from the hotel and my father's friend smuggled us both out of the city. We went back to the island named after Apollo's appendage and spent the rest of my holiday secure in the knowledge that I had indeed, averted a war.

Would you mind, terribly, warming my tea up? Thank you ever so much.