" I gasped. I suppose I may have shed a tear then, for England and her empire. What hope was there for us? Against a people who would destroy the stately majesty of our favorite breakfast treat; a people who had actually industrialized the crumpet—how could we compete? The decline of our empire was thus presaged to me—as plain as a hole in a crumpet. “Monstrous,” I muttered. "

― G.S. Denning , A Study in Brimstone (Warlock Holmes, #1)