Henry David Throckmorton

I asked the man in front of me: "Pardon me, but are you Henry David Throckmorton?"
He turned and gave me a big friendly smile.
"Yes I am" he said. Then we all moved forward in the line.
"I just wanna say I'm a great admirer of your work with displaced dental hygienists" I told him. 
"Not at all" he replied modestly. "It was the only decent thing to do at the time." 
The line had stalled again. And it began to rain. Mr. Throckmorton held out his hand for my ticket.
"Let me have that" he said. "I'll take care of it."
I handed him my ticket and he simply went to the head of the line and brought back a full pound of hemmy for me.
"But I was only slated to receive half a pound" I protested.
"Not a problem" he replied, with a mote in his eye, "sometimes being famous has its advantages. Shall we go  have some iced tea?"
So I sat down with the famous, wonderful Henry David Throckmorton at a tea shop in the middle of a heavy downpour. He drank nothing but distilled water with a lemon slice in it; I had ginger/ginseng herbal tea. His treat, of course. I was so nervous that I put three packets of sugar in my tea, instead of my usual one packet.
"I have to ask you something, sir" I said to him nervously. "I hope you won't take it the wrong way."
"Fire away -- and don't call me sir; only Lieutenant Generals at the Pentagon do that" he replied graciously.
"Well, okay" I gulped. "From what I've noticed, and read, every famous person eventually turns into an obsessed lunatic and becomes at the very least a nuisance and as often as not actually becomes dangerous. Where are you right now on that curve?"
Mr. Throckmorton chuckled deeply and warmly before answering.
"Son" he said, clapping me on the shoulder, "I like you -- you're not afraid to speak your mind. That's very rare in a young man these days."
I began to blush.
"To answer your question" he continued. "Ever since I negotiated that ceasefire in Alaska I've noticed the beginnings of a crazed look in my eyes when I shave in the morning. I also talk to myself when I'm alone at my office in Manhattan. And I now carry a fountain pen filled with white vinegar, in case of an attempt on my life. So I'd say I'm about a four on the Cuckoo Scale. Eccentric, but not yet dangerous."
"Gee" I said, "that's swell of you to tell me."
"Why shouldn't I?" he replied. "The public needs to know their heroes are not supermen or deities; we're subject to all sorts of encumbrances like Tic Douloureux, or a fear of wimples. If you prick us, do we not yell?"
The rain was really coming down hard now outside the tea shop. An elderly couple were trapped inside their car out on the curb by the rushing stream of water roaring past them in the gutter.
"But tell me, my friend" Mr. Throckmorton continued, "what is a handsome young man like you doing standing in line for a measly half a pound of hemmy?"
I flushed up again like a fire hydrant.
"My . . . my mother needs it" I said quietly.
"Oh" he said, understandingly. "It's one of THOSE cases."
He took out a small black notebook and jotted something down in it. An awning collapsed across the street, enveloping several people sheltering under it before it was washed away in the rising flood.
"Would you like another glass of tea?" he asked kindly.
"Could I have a birch beer instead?" I asked.
"Of course. Waiter, make it so." he said confidently.  
As we sat and silently watched the wind outside rise to gale force and shatter several plate glass windows, I couldn't help admiring Mr. Throckmorton's delicate sense of noblesse oblige.
When I had finished my birch beer the great man stood up and shook my hand.
"Young feller" he said earnestly, "I've enjoyed our talk immensely. My gondola is calling for me now, and you are being left behind to most likely drown in this typhoon. Good luck to you!" 
So saying, he stepped out into the lashing rain and into his gondola, which sailed majestically away.
But as everyone knows, Henry David Throckmorton's gondola sank in that storm with all hands. I, on the other hand, managed to survive by clinging to a wooden produce crate. In six month's time I had written his hagiography, entitled "A Glass of Tea with H.D. Throckmorton." It's been a bestseller for months now. I've been on Oprah twice, and she's helping me raise funds for a reindeer sanctuary in Lapland. 
Nowadays I can step to the front of the line myself for hemmy -- and I can get two pounds of it if I want.
Can I tell you something? The hemmy isn't really for my mother -- it's for me.