Once upon a time, there was a little lump. His name was Leonard. He lived in his family's ancestral manse, in the Lumpish Highlands. Once, his family had been comprised of refined, sophisticated gentleheaps (many of whom were baronets), but over the years they had, as a group, dwindled into lumps.

Leonard was the last of the lumps, and as he aged, he often brooded over the decline of his bloodline. Many an evening would find him seated by the fire, growing lightly toasted, reading over the family documents, searching for some clue to their downfall.

One evening, as Leonard sat slumped over his great-great-uncle Bungheap's journal, there was a resonant knock on the manor door. Leonard was startled, for no one had come to call at Lump Manor for many years, not since the death of Aunt Thimble.

"Who is it?" he cried. There was no reply.

When a few moments passed with no further sound, Leonard sighed. "Perhaps I was hearing things," he decided, and returned to his studies.

Just as he got settled, however, there was another knocking, more resonant and forceful than the last. There was no denying it now. Leonard rose unsteadily (he had been drinking rather a lot of Madeira) and trundled to the front hall.

The knocking renewed, insistently.

Unfortunately Leonard was too short to look through the peephole, and his attempt to peer through the crack between door and frame was unfruitful. Leonard was loath to encounter an unidentified stranger, especially dressed, as he was, in his bedslippers.

"Who's there?" he called through the crack. Again, there was no answer.

His curiosity began to get the better of him, however. At last, filled with equal parts trepidation and excitement, he pulled the door open.

The figure on the step was shrouded in shadows. Having overcome his apprehension, Leonard found he had little patience for further delay.

"Well, show yourself," he said, rather testily.

The visitor moved into the light that spilled from the vestibule. Leonard blinked (the Madeira, in combination with his advanced age, made his vision a bit wonky) and recognized him as Long-Lost Cousin Bertram.

"Why, Bertie!" he gasped.

Bertram looked a great deal the worse for wear. He was a mere shadow of his former self, a veritable bump.

"Come in and have a drink," Leonard offered.

Bertram shook his nodule soberly.

"Well, at least have a seat by the fire. You look an utter wash."

"No, I dinna," mumbled Bertram.

"Well, what is it, then?" Leonard feared that he was beginning to catch a chill from the exposure to so much damp air.

"Got a message," Bertram said, tersely.

Leonard waited with supreme patience.

"For yuh," Bertram explained.

"Yes?"

Bertram leaned forward conspiratorially.

"Physics," he hissed.

"What? Physics?" Leonard was quite aggrieved. Long-lost or no, this bump had no right to waste his precious time on such nonsense.

"Aye."

"For the love of clods!" Leonard ejaculated.

Bertram snorted. "Yeh don't have to be a gob about it."

Leonard drew himself up to his full height (fourteen inches), summoning all the dignity at his disposal. "I beg your pardon. But I simply do not follow your meaning."

Bertram giggled disconcertingly. He leaned forward.

"The lumps always fall to the bottom, yeh know." With that, he disappeared back into the night.

As the words sank in, Leonard was filled with the holy fire. Suddenly, his research seemed transformed. Everything made astounding, crystalline sense. Within the week, he had written a monograph titled "One Lump or Two? The Curious Tale of a Tremendous Tribe."

However, based as it was in an entirely specious pseudo-insight, the book failed to make even the slightest splash on the literary scene (aside from a scathing three-line review in the Guardian). Indeed, when Leonard read it over in the cold light of Madeira-less day, even he had to admit that it had not the smallest jot of merit.

Soon after, he died of old age, and his corpse was mistaken for a moth ball by the cleaning service who prepared the manse for its entrance into the real-estate market.

The End.