He blushed, and stammered a few words of apology.

Beta oxidation involves a repeating sequence of four enzymatic steps in which an acyl-coenzyme A ester (acyl-CoA) undergoes subsequent steps of dehydrogenation, hydration, another dehydrogenation and finally thiolytic cleavage [27 ].

He raised his glass. ‘Here's to you, Oom Ben,’ he said. ‘Give them hell.’

All is fresh, clean, and clear to the jaded traveller, emerging like an incipient culm-pile in his becindered state from the eight hours of soft-coal inhalation which constitutes his chief impression of the trip up from New York.