In Baroness Orczy’s ‘Scarlet Pimpernel,’ Marguerite Blakeney is forced to watch on as Citizen Chauvelin’s troops close in on her husband Sir Percy in a little Calais café. But in his excitement Chauvelin does not notice that under the cover of his babble Sir Percy has substituted pepper for the snuff in his snuff box.

Sir Percy opens his snuff box, now filled with pepper, and with an encouraging word courteously offers it to Chauvelin. The Frenchman, still distracted by the trap he is so anxious to spring, reaches into Sir Percy’s snuff box, takes a pinch of the dark powder lying within, and breathes it in...

108 words