The mayor pledged to double the prize at every stall. A small girl asked whether he meant twice as many marbles at the next stall, then twice as many again at the third. His speechwriter liked the rhetorical flourish. (rhetorical: persuasive, expressive, stylistic; flourish: embellishment, ornament, stylistic touch) The child preferred to count. Four rounds of exponential growth would empty his bag. (exponential: geometric, multiplicative)
The mayor tried a different allocation. (allocation: allotment, apportionment, distribution) He would put an equal number of marbles at every stall and leave six in reserve. The change brought some consistency to his promises. (consistency: coherence, uniformity, agreement) It also helped with the preservation of one particularly fine blue marble he had owned as a boy. (preservation: conservation, protection, safeguarding)
"What if ten more children come?" the little girl asked. Their plan for mitigation was simple. (mitigation: alleviation, moderation, lessening) They would open another game where several people could play with the same marble. It drew the largest crowd of the day. The mayor put the blue one in himself.