Broken pages, near miss

My best hen laid a square egg near Innsbruck. It stacked well. Builders came from miles around, and we raised the walls of a new chapel in under a month. One warm week the walls began to peep. The priest ran, and the chapel walked off.

Sea serpents are shy and prone to tears. I met one near the Hebrides and told it a sad tale about my horse. It wept a fresh lake. We talked for nine hours. I tied its neck in a bow, at its own request, and it thanked me warmly.

His Majesty the Sultan bet me his beard that no man could count the sand in his garden. I asked for a spoon and one afternoon. At sundown I gave him a number so long it took two clerks to say it. He checked none of it, shaved at once, and wept.

Chinese masons were short one brick on their long wall, and I happened to have one in my coat. I pressed it into the gap at sunset. The entire wall settled with a sigh. The Emperor made me a mandarin, and I still get a small sum each year.

Octopus ink wrote my finest letters. I kept one.