Oops

From the Nevada Appeal newspaper:

An acclaimed novelist lost his office in Carson City on Thursday when he threw a lit piece of paper into gasoline.

Fantasy writer David Eddings, 75, said he was using water to flush out the gas tank of his broken-down Excalibur sports car, when some fluid leaked. In a lapse of judgment he readily admitted, Eddings lit a piece of paper and threw into the puddle to test if it was still flammable. The answer came in an orange torrent.

Eddings explained that many of his original manuscripts were consumed by the blaze, but he was at least as much disturbed by another casualty of that calamity:

The loss of the sports car, which he bought in the 1970s, was a little painful as well, he said.

“It made for a real fancy vehicle, right up until it burned.”

(Hat tip to Bill Peschel.)