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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75598 ***
+
+
+The Problem Club
+
+by Barry Pain
+
+published by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. (London)
+Copyright 1919
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+    I. The Giraffe Problem
+   II. The Kiss Problem
+  III. The Free Meal Problem
+   IV. The Win-and-Lose-Problem
+    V. The Handkerchief Problem
+   VI. The Identity Problem
+  VII. The Shakespearean Problem
+ VIII. The Impersonation Problem
+   IX. The Alibi Problem
+    X. The Threepenny Problem
+   XI, The Q-Loan Problem
+  XII. The Pig-Keeper’s Problem
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: A bus-conductor with passengers on a bus. The conductor
+carries a pad of tickets and a change purse, and stands before a
+passenger wearing a clerical collar and hat. Another passenger looks
+over his newspaper at the bus-conductor and smirks. Caption: ‘“Oh
+yes,” he said, “I heard. If you want all them threepennies, you’d
+better get them out of the blanky offertory-bag next Sunday.”’]
+
+
+
+No. I.
+
+The Giraffe Problem
+
+Prefatory Note
+
+The general public knows little about the Problem Club. Many are not
+even aware that it has now been in existence for several years. Nor
+can it be said that the references to it which have appeared from time
+to time in the Press have been very enlightening, or even reasonably
+accurate.
+
+For instance, a paragraph in a recent issue of a society paper (which,
+it may be admitted, is generally well informed) makes various
+statements as to the Problem Club. It says that the club has its
+premises underground in Piccadilly, that a former Premier is a member
+of it, that all the members are required to swear a most solemn oath
+to act with scrupulous honour in the monthly competitions, and that
+high play frequently goes on. The actual truth is that there are no
+club premises. The famous but old-fashioned restaurant that reserves
+two rooms on the first floor for the club’s monthly meetings is not
+situated in Piccadilly. No Premier has ever been a member. The story
+of the solemn oath is even more absurd. After all, the members are
+gentlemen. They would as soon think of taking a solemn oath not to
+cheat at cards or at golf. The ‘scrupulous honour’ is taken for
+granted. Lastly, there is no high play in the accepted sense of the
+term. The amount that a member can win or lose in the monthly
+competitions will be stated presently, and any betting on the results
+is prohibited.
+
+Silly misrepresentations of this kind have caused some annoyance, and
+it is now thought that a discreet but authorised account of some part
+of the proceedings of the club would be preferable.
+
+The club consists of twelve members, and the annual subscription is
+one hundred and thirty-four pounds. Of this sum twenty-four pounds is
+allotted to the club expenses, including the club dinners which are
+held on the first Saturday in every month. Each member in turn acts as
+chairman at one dinner in the year, afterwards adjudicating upon the
+problem competition for that month; while at the other eleven meetings
+he is himself a competitor, the remaining one hundred and ten pounds
+of his subscription being treated as eleven entrance fees of ten
+pounds each. The problems are not of a mathematical nature, and were
+for some time invented and propounded by Leonard, the ingenious
+head-waiter of the restaurant. The winner receives the whole of the
+entrance fees, amounting to one hundred and ten pounds; if there is
+more than one winner this amount is divided equally between them. Thus
+for his investment of one hundred and ten pounds it is possible that a
+member may in one year obtain a return of one thousand two hundred and
+ten pounds, if he is the sole winner of the eleven competitions for
+which he is eligible. But the minute-books of the club show that in
+actual practice this has never happened; indeed, the record, made by
+Mr Pusely-Smythe in 1911, is seven wins, and on two occasions out of
+the seven he had to share the prize with another successful
+competitor.
+
+It may be admitted that the club has necessarily been of the nature of
+a secret society. Some of the problems set have been rather curious,
+and it has occasionally happened that in the course of their practical
+solution members have been led to do things which might prejudice them
+in their domestic or social relations, or even subject them to the
+penalties of the law.
+
+It is permitted to add an account of some of the pre-war meetings of
+the club, various natural precautions being taken to prevent the
+discovery of the identity of members.
+
+It was the forty-third meeting of the Problem Club. Dinner was over,
+and the members had adjourned to the lofty and comfortable room where
+the business of the evening was transacted. A side-table was suitably
+equipped with provision for smokers—all the members were smokers—and
+for such other refreshments as might be required in the course of the
+evening. One or two waiters still lingered—removing a coffee-cup,
+handing a liqueur, or placing an ash-tray and matches conveniently on
+one of the small tables. A hum of conversation went on through the
+blue haze of the cigar-smoke. Mr Pusely-Smythe, with his usual
+lugubrious manner, was just coming to the end of a screamingly funny
+story. Any reference to the competition to be settled is by an
+unwritten law forbidden until the chairman has opened the proceedings,
+but it was noticeable that Major Byles was once more talking of
+resigning his membership. He was not taken very seriously. He was an
+original member, and, though he lived in the country for the greater
+part of the year, had never been known to miss a single meeting of the
+club. His continuous bad luck in the competitions had irritated him,
+but nobody believed in his threat of resignation, and it may be
+doubted if he quite believed in it himself.
+
+The waiters left the room, and Sir Charles Bunford, an elderly
+gentleman of distinguished appearance, who was chairman for the
+evening, took his place at his table and arranged his papers. Among
+them the club cheque-book showed temptingly. In accordance with the
+club custom by which the chairman at one meeting acted as secretary at
+the next, Dr Alden took his seat beside Sir Charles and prepared to
+make a note of the proceedings for the club minute-book. Conversation
+ceased. The other members seated themselves informally in a semicircle
+of easy-chairs. There was, indeed, a marked absence of formality at
+the Problem Club. There was no order of precedence. The chairman did
+not rise when he spoke, nor did members rise when they answered him.
+
+‘Now, gentlemen,’ Sir Charles began, ‘we have before us to-night the
+Giraffe Problem. I will read it out to you as worded by our esteemed
+friend Leonard: “It is required to induce a woman who is unaware of
+your intention to say to you, ‘You ought to have been a giraffe.’”
+Now, of course, I’m not a competitor, but I must say that I’m sorry
+I’m not. Upon my word, I don’t think Leonard has ever given us
+anything quite so easy.’
+
+There were several dissentient voices: ‘Not a bit of it.’ ‘Can’t agree
+with you there, Bunford.’ ‘Wish I’d found it so.’ ‘Leonard knew what
+he was doing this time.’
+
+‘Oh, very well,’ said Sir Charles smiling. ‘I should have thought
+there were a score of conversational openings to which the inevitable
+reply would be, “You ought to have been a giraffe.” I may be wrong,
+but I still expect that the prize to-night will have to be divided
+between four or five of you. However, we’ll see what luck you’ve had.
+I’ll begin with you, doctor, and then go on in the direction of the
+sun and the wine.’
+
+Dr Alden shook his head. He had a strong head, an alert expression,
+and a bright eye. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘There was too much to do in
+Harley Street this month for me to be able to give the proper time to
+it. I made an attempt. It has probably cost me the esteem of an
+excellent woman; these excellent women never think you’re serious
+except when you’re joking. I gave her the chance to tell me I ought to
+have been a giraffe, but she never took it. Enough said. Try the next
+man.’
+
+‘The next is our only member of Parliament, Mr Harding Pope.’
+
+‘Not competing this month,’ said Mr Pope rather pompously. ‘My
+constituency has made great demands upon me, and I’m unable to defend
+my entrance fee. Fortunately, the pleasure of the company in which I
+find myself is worth far more.’
+
+‘That’s all right,’ said Sir Charles warningly, ‘but don’t get too
+slack. We’ve got a long waiting list. What about you, Major Byles?’
+
+‘My usual luck,’ said the Major. ‘I worked the whole thing out
+completely and made all the necessary preparations. I was down at my
+cottage at the time. I assure you that during the whole of breakfast
+one morning I talked about practically nothing except giraffes and the
+way that they can pull down fruit from a tree, thanks to their
+thundering long necks. My wife, the children’s governess, and Mrs
+Hebor, who was stopping with us, all heard me, though I can’t say that
+they seemed particularly interested. Afterwards my wife and I were in
+the garden, and I pointed to a tree full of ripe cherries.
+
+‘“I like fruit,” I said, “but I hate climbing trees.”
+
+‘Now, considering the ground-bait that I had been putting down at
+breakfast, I consider the betting was ten to one that she would reply
+that I ought to have been a giraffe. Instead of that, she said that
+Wilkins would get them for me, and then seemed surprised that I was
+annoyed. A few minutes later I tried the governess with precisely the
+same remark, and she asked me if I would like to have a ladder
+fetched. (I often wonder what I pay that woman her salary for.) Then
+Mrs Hebor came out—as dependable a woman as I know in a general way;
+you nearly always know what she is going to say before she says it—and
+I told her that I liked cherries, but hated climbing to get them.
+
+‘“You ought,” she began—and this time I thought I really had got
+it—“to be able to reach some of those without climbing.”
+
+‘After that I gave up. No amount of intelligence can contend against
+luck like that. Matter of fact, I’m tempted to give up this problem
+business altogether.’
+
+‘Oh, don’t do that,’ said Sir Charles soothingly. ‘It was hard lines,
+but we shall see you a prize-winner one of these days. Now, Mr
+Cunliffe, what have you to tell us?’
+
+‘I failed,’ said the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe, an elderly cleric who
+specialised in broad-mindedness. ‘Plausible strategy, but
+disappointing results. Nothing of interest to report.’
+
+‘Did you do any better, Mr Matthews?’
+
+Mr Matthews was a man of forty, bald, round-faced, rubicund, and
+slightly obese. The task of ordering the club dinners and the wines to
+be drunk therewith was always left in his hands with a confidence
+which was invariably justified. His knowledge as an epicure was
+considerable, and it is possible that his intelligence was less
+considerable, but more than once he had been lucky in a competition.
+He was the richest man in a club where nobody was very poor, and was
+good-tempered and popular.
+
+‘Well, you know,’ said Matthews, ‘I feel as if I ought to have won
+this. At one time it looked as if I simply had it chucked at me. I was
+talking to Lady Amelia, who does a lot in the East End and is always
+nosing round for subscriptions.
+
+‘“Why do you men drink?” she asked in her blunt way.
+
+‘The question of this competition occurred to me, and it looked like a
+good chance.
+
+‘“Well,” I said, “the pleasure begins in the palate, but I fancy that
+it continues in the throat. I often wish I had a longer throat.”
+
+‘You would have hardly thought she could have missed it, but she did.
+Said that she was sure I was not so bad as I made myself out to be,
+and milked me of a fiver for some rotten “good cause.”’
+
+‘Look here,’ said Major Byles, returning from a fruitless visit to the
+side-table, ‘I’ll ask the chairman for a minute’s interval. They’ve
+not put out any seltzer, though they must know that I always take
+seltzer with mine.’
+
+‘Certainly, Major; certainly. Would somebody kindly touch the bell?’
+
+The seltzer-water was brought and business was resumed.
+
+‘Your turn next, Jimmy,’ said Sir Charles.
+
+The Hon. James Feldane, a rather weary young man, said, ‘Well, I claim
+to be a winner, but there’s a shade of doubt about it, and I’ll ask
+for your ruling. All I can say is that if I don’t touch the money my
+luck’s even worse than the Major’s. Like him, I was systematic about
+it. My first step was to buy some of the highest collars that could be
+got for money—two inches or so too high for me and beastly
+uncomfortable. I put one of them on, and looked like a bad
+freak—something out of a back number of _Punch_. My next step was to
+call on my married sister. She told me to go home and dress myself
+properly, as I knew she would. So I asked in my innocent way what was
+wrong, and she said I seemed to have mistaken my neck for the Nelson
+Column.
+
+‘“Alluding to my collar?” I said. “Well, I like plenty. I’d wear a
+collar three feet high if I could.”’
+
+‘And then my fool of a brother-in-law stuck his oar in, and said, “You
+ought to have been a giraffe”; and I’m absolutely certain Dora would
+have said it if he hadn’t got in first.
+
+‘So there it is—the words were all right, but they were used by a man.
+Still, for some purposes—bankruptcy and things of that kind—a man and
+his wife count as one, don’t they? What’s the ruling?’
+
+‘My ruling,’ said Sir Charles, ‘is that your claim fails. It is
+required that the words should be used by a woman, and your
+brother-in-law is not a woman.’
+
+‘Yes, I was afraid you’d think so,’ said Jimmy, ‘but it was worth
+trying. Anybody want any rotten high collars?’
+
+‘Now, Mr Pusely-Smythe,’ said the chairman.
+
+Mr Pusely-Smythe was a man of middle age, with dark, cavernous eyes
+and an intellectual forehead. He was pale and thin, and was less
+solemn than he seemed.
+
+‘I claim to have won,’ he said in a melancholy voice. ‘My method was
+not the most obvious or direct, and might easily have failed, but the
+luck was with me. I must tell you that I happen to know a Mrs
+Magsworth, who of late years has given way a good deal to Nature
+Study. She haunts the Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. She understands
+about the habitat of the hyena, and if cockroaches devour their young,
+and which end of the tree the onion grows—all that kind of thing. She
+is rather severe with people who, as she phrases it, “show an abysmal
+ignorance of the simplest facts.” She has got a face like a horse,
+though that is not germane to the question. I arranged with a kindly
+hostess to let me take in Mrs Magsworth to dinner one evening—I gather
+that there was no particular rush for the job.
+
+‘I said: “I’m so glad to meet you again, Mrs Magsworth. With your
+knowledge you will be able to settle a point that has been worrying me
+for days. My little nephew asked me which was the tallest animal. And,
+do you know, I couldn’t be quite sure.”
+
+‘“Then, Mr Smythe,” she said, “you ought to have been. A giraffe is
+much the tallest of the mammals.”
+
+‘So I claim to have won. She, being a woman ignorant of my intention,
+was induced to say to me the words required in the order required and
+without the interpolation of any other word.’
+
+‘But there’s the interpolation of a full stop,’ said Mr Harding Pope,
+and was at once called to order—only the chairman has the right to
+comment and to adjudicate.
+
+Sir Charles took a few moments to consider his decision, and then gave
+his ruling as follows:—
+
+‘My ruling is that Mr Pusely-Smythe’s claim is conditionally allowed.
+It is true that Mrs Magsworth used other words both before and after
+the words required, but that is not precluded by the terms of the
+problem. The only other possible objection is that there was the
+interpolation of a full stop. Now, there is no full stop in spoken
+speech: it is represented by a pause. In this case the pause indicated
+the end of a sentence. In another case the pause might have indicated
+that the woman could not for a moment think of the word giraffe. In
+that case I am sure that no objection would have been raised. Yet
+there, too, a sign could be used to represent it in print or writing.
+Leonard requires certain words in a certain order, but he does not
+forbid a pause to be made between them. Unless some member has induced
+a woman to use the same words with no pause whatever—which I should
+rule to be a still better solution—Mr Pusely-Smythe’s claim is
+allowed.’
+
+As no other member had met with any success at all, a cheque for one
+hundred and ten pounds was drawn to the order of Mr Pusely-Smythe and
+handed to him with the congratulations of the chairman.
+
+
+The chairman’s next duty was to open the sealed envelope containing
+the problem set by the ingenious Leonard for the ensuing month. This
+was entitled ‘The Kiss Problem,’ and when its conditions were read out
+both Major Byles and the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe objected to it, though
+on totally different grounds, and urged that Leonard should be asked
+to substitute something else. However, on a vote being taken, it was
+agreed by a considerable majority that ‘The Kiss Problem’ should be
+retained, although, as the chairman pointed out, it looked excessively
+dangerous.
+
+Mr Pusely-Smythe was reminded that it was his turn to be chairman at
+the next meeting. And then, the business of the evening being at an
+end, the card-tables were brought in, and members addressed themselves
+to bridge at moderate points.
+
+
+
+No. II.
+
+The Kiss Problem
+
+Mr Pusely-Smythe’s air of saturnine melancholy was pronounced as he
+took the chair at the forty-fourth monthly meeting of the Problem
+Club.
+
+‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began, ‘the waiters are supposed to have left
+the room, but in view of the nature of the problem before us to-night
+you would probably wish to be quite sure on the point. Will somebody
+kindly examine the screen by the waiters’ entrance?’
+
+Mr Quillian, K.C., reported that no waiter was concealed, and further
+that the door was locked.
+
+‘Thank you, my learned friend. Leonard—admirable as a head-waiter,
+ingenious and generally innocuous as the inventor of our problems—has
+on this occasion undergone a moral lapse. I will give you the words of
+this lamentable problem: “It is required within the space of one hour
+to kiss upon the cheek ten females of the age of courtship and not
+cousins or any nearer relative of the kisser, without giving offence
+to any one of them.”
+
+‘Major Byles protested against this problem on the ground that it gave
+an unfair advantage to the young and unattached. The Rev. Septimus
+Cunliffe seconded the protest on the ground that, broad-minded though
+he was, after all there was a limit. A vote being taken, it was
+found—to the eternal shame of the club, if I may say so—that there was
+a considerable majority in favour of the problem being retained.’
+
+Every member being well aware that the chairman himself had voted with
+the majority, there was some hilarious interruption.
+
+‘Gentlemen,’ said the chairman severely, ‘this is not the spirit in
+which to approach stories of wrecked homes and blasted reputations,
+and these stories we must now hear. I observe that Mr Quillian has had
+his face scratched recently, doubtless the work of outraged modesty,
+but before I——’
+
+‘I really must protest,’ said Mr Quillian. ‘The slight marks on my
+left cheek are not scratches, but were caused—as they say at the
+inquests—by some blunt instrument, to wit, a safety razor.’
+
+‘Well,’ the chairman continued, ‘you will have an opportunity later to
+explain how the girl got hold of the razor. I will begin with some of
+our younger Lotharios. What have you to tell us, Mr Feldane?’
+
+The Hon. James Feldane put down his cigarette, and spoke wearily:
+‘It’s like this, you know. I claim to have won unless my score’s
+beaten. Ten in an hour is an impossible demand on the part of our
+friend Leonard, and I doubt if bogey would be more than four. May I
+take it that I win, if I am nearest to Leonard’s figure?’
+
+‘That is so. Continue your loathsome confessions.’
+
+‘It’s strictly masonic and all that, ain’t it?’
+
+‘Mr Feldane may be assured that his hideous secret will die with us,’
+said the chairman. ‘The club rule of secrecy has never yet been
+broken.’
+
+‘That being so, I’ll get on. I’d planned it all for a dance I was
+going to, and I’d put in a deal of conscientious preliminary work,
+getting certain girls up to a certain mark, if you understand what I
+mean. On the appointed night a perfectly dear old thing with two
+daughters some years older than myself called to take me on to that
+dance. They’ve known me all my life. They knew me when I’d got golden
+curls and played with a wool rabbit. They’re no sort of relation, and
+so they count for the purpose of this competition. Well, I’ve always
+kissed them when we met, and I kissed them that time as soon as I
+boarded the car. So when we got to the house where the dance was I was
+three up and still had fifty-three minutes to go.’
+
+Here Feldane was interrupted by an appeal to the chairman. It was made
+by his friend Hesseltine, a tall and dark young man, as good-looking
+as Feldane himself, though of a very different type.
+
+‘Mr Chairman,’ said Hesseltine, ‘before Jimmy goes any further I
+should like to ask for your ruling. The mother of those two girls is
+to my certain knowledge sixty-two years of age. I claim that Jimmy
+cannot score her, as she is above the age of courtship.’
+
+‘Sorry, Mr Hesseltine, but your claim is disallowed. It has been well
+observed that a man is as old as he feels, but that a woman is rather
+younger than she doesn’t look. There is no historical instance of any
+woman being over the age of courtship.’
+
+‘Then I’m pipped,’ said Hesseltine gloomily. ‘Go on, Jimmy.’
+
+‘I kissed four more in the time left me, but one of them told me that
+she would never speak to me again, and so I can’t count her, though
+it’s what she always says. I was done by the time limit. You can’t in
+decency kiss a girl and then do an immediate bunk. You must keep on
+telling her how maddeningly beautiful she is for a few minutes.
+Besides, at a dance you can’t always find the girl you want at the
+moment you want her. Still, I claim a score of six.’
+
+‘The claim is allowed. And what was your sad experience, Mr
+Hesseltine?’
+
+‘Much the same as Jimmy’s. I went to the same dance. I also played the
+friends-of-my-childhood, but I could only raise five of them. So
+Jimmy’s one ahead. If you had disallowed his old lady we should have
+tied. I might add that, being rather carried away, I got engaged to
+two different girls in the course of the hour, and though it’s all
+right now, I don’t monkey with a buzzsaw again. The next kiss problem
+will find little Bobby seated with the spectators.’
+
+‘Possibly,’ said the chairman, ‘the finesse and experience of riper
+years will have accomplished more than the attractions of untutored
+youth. May I interrupt your secretarial duties, Sir Charles?’
+
+Sir Charles laid down his pencil, smiled, and shook his head. ‘This
+time you must place me also with the spectators,’ he said, and quoted
+an apt line of Horace.
+
+‘It is seldom that you miss. I wish Mr Harding Pope, that I could say
+the same of you. What have you done this time to redeem yourself?’
+
+‘What could I do?’ said Mr Pope, with an oratorical gesture. ‘I
+represent a Nonconformist constituency which is not tolerant of the
+least laxity in the private life of its member. The mere suspicion
+that I had taken part in a competition of this kind might end my
+political career.’
+
+‘Possibly. Failure to take part in the next competition will actually
+end your career as a member of this club, as you will see if you refer
+to rule eleven. The club does not regard onlookers as sportsmen. I
+suppose, Major Byles, since you protested against the problem, that
+for the first time in your membership you have failed to compete.’
+
+‘That is so, but my protest had very little to do with it. Matter of
+fact, I had a superstitious idea that it might change my luck if I
+gave a miss this time.’
+
+‘Then I will turn to Dr Alden. What was your adventure, doctor?’
+
+‘Mine was more a tragedy than an adventure,’ said the doctor. ‘On the
+evening of Sunday the twelfth, acting on information received, I
+presented myself at the residence of my married sister. She said that
+I must have forgotten that she was entertaining the girls of her
+Tennyson Club that night, and that she had never wanted me less, but
+that, as I was there, I could stop. I stopped, that being what I had
+come for. Her suggestion that her husband and myself, the only two
+males present, should go off to the billiard-room after supper, was
+negatived by both of us. In accordance with plan I then directed the
+conversation to the subject of face-powder, condemning it on
+scientific grounds and maintaining that it deceived nobody. My sister
+said that it was not intended to deceive, but that as a matter of fact
+no man would ever detect it unless it had been put on with a shovel. I
+said that, on the contrary, given a certain condition, any man with a
+scientific training could detect it with his eyes shut.
+
+‘Several of the girls asked me how. This was not unexpected.
+
+‘I replied that he would only have to touch with his lips a cheek on
+which there was face-powder and he would know it instantly and
+infallibly.
+
+‘My sister said she did not believe a word of it.
+
+‘My answer was that I could easily prove it. Let them blindfold me.
+Then twelve times in succession let a cheek touch my lips. In each
+case I would state whether or not face-powder had been used, and would
+employ no other means of detection. I was so certain of it that I
+would gladly contribute a guinea to the charitable fund of the
+Tennyson Club for every mistake that I made.
+
+‘My sister said that it was very easy to make an impossible offer that
+could not be accepted. Somewhat to my surprise the prettiest girl
+there said that she did not think it an impossible offer at all. It
+was a scientific experiment and might benefit a very good cause. I
+would never know the identity of the twelve who took part in the
+experiment. Its very publicity made it innocuous. But I should have to
+give them a little time to settle which were the twelve to be
+sacrificed and the order in which they were to present themselves. To
+this I at once agreed.
+
+‘I was put in a chair and blindfolded—really blindfolded. I need
+hardly tell the members of this club that my claim to be able to
+detect the presence of face-powder in the way indicated was a piece of
+monumental spoof. This did not alarm me. I could not lose more than
+twelve guineas, and I was out to win our prize of one hundred and ten
+pounds. I could assign my mistakes to the fact that I had just smoked
+a cigarette, thus spoiling the delicacy of my perception.
+
+‘I heard a sound of whispering and suppressed laughter as the girls
+held their consultation, and then the experiment began in silence,
+broken only by the rustle of feminine garments. Twelve times in
+succession I felt a gentle touch upon my lips, and never once did I
+fail to take advantage of it. I gave six decisions for face-powder and
+six against, and was just thinking how I would spend the hundred and
+ten pounds when I heard a roar of laughter. I tore off the bandage and
+asked what was the matter.
+
+‘As soon as they could speak they told me. The only person that I
+had kissed on all twelve occasions was my own sister. Sometimes she
+had touched my lips with her cheek, on which there was face-powder,
+and sometimes with the back of her hand, on which there was none.
+And nine times I had been mistaken in my diagnosis. The treasurer
+of the charitable fund—she was the pretty girl of whom I have
+spoken—collected the money. Then they all resumed their merriment, and
+no excuse for my mistakes was ever heard.
+
+‘All things considered, I think I have a fair claim for a consolation
+prize.’
+
+‘The club does not give prizes of that description,’ said the
+chairman. ‘But I can offer you our sympathy, which is more valuable
+than mere money. I will now call upon Mr Quillian.’
+
+Mr Quillian adjusted his pince-nez. ‘I will ask the chairman’s
+permission to argue that the whole of this competition is null and
+void, and that the prize should be added to that for the next
+competition.’
+
+‘I will hear you, Mr Quillian, but you must be brief and to the point.
+You are not in court now, you know.’
+
+‘If you please, I submit that a kiss has a psychical as well as a
+physical side, and that kisses for competition purposes are so
+deficient on the psychical or emotional side that they cannot be
+considered as kisses in the ordinary sense of the word.’
+
+‘I do not admit that. Possibly the competition kiss does not come up
+to the standard demanded by a voluptuary like my learned friend, but
+it is still a kiss. If he kissed this match-box, it would be a kiss
+and could not be described otherwise, although presumably the
+emotional side would be absent. Enough of these legal quibbles. I will
+now ask Mr Matthews if he has been as successful in the part of
+Lothario as he invariably is in that of Lucullus.’
+
+Mr Matthews, the club epicure, said that a decent upbringing had
+caused him to fail in a shameful enterprise, and gave his account of
+it.
+
+He advertised in the name of Mrs Elsmere Twiss, giving an
+accommodation address, for a companion to an elderly lady. The salary
+offered was magnificent, and it was intimated that accomplishments
+would be less valued than youthful charm and an affectionate nature.
+Applicants were to enclose photographs.
+
+Ten of the applicants—and it is to be feared that they were the ten
+whose photographs were the most attractive—were given an appointment
+with Mrs Elsmere Twiss at a West End hotel on a certain day. On the
+morning of that day Mr Matthews placed himself in the hands of a
+famous costumier, who had guaranteed to convert him into such an
+excellent imitation of an old lady that even at close quarters the
+disguise would not be detected. The costumier spent two hours on
+effecting a most artistic transformation and then, after submitting
+himself to the photographer in attendance, Mr Matthew drove off to the
+hotel. A passer-by who had happened to glance into the cab might have
+observed a sweet-looking old lady smoking a large cigar.
+
+[Illustration: An older person wearing a Victorian-era hat with a
+train, a black dress with a fur collar, and white gloves, with a lit
+cigar in ‘her’ mouth. Caption: ‘A sweet-looking old lady smoking a
+large cigar.’]
+
+He now proceeded to interview the selected ten, it being his
+abominable intention to kiss each applicant as he said good-bye to
+her.
+
+The first applicant to be brought in from the waiting-room was Miss
+Grace Porter. Everything went well until the moment came for the
+affectionate good-bye. But then it chanced that Miss Porter dropped
+her handkerchief.
+
+Now Mr Matthews had from the nursery upwards been taught habits of
+politeness, and his decent upbringing now proved his undoing.
+Forgetting that he was supposed to be an elderly lady and the girl’s
+prospective employer, he flew to pick up that handkerchief. And as he
+stooped his hat and wig fell off. For a few awful moments he remained
+stooping, waiting for Miss Porter’s scream. But no scream came. She
+had realised that Mrs Elsmere Twiss wore a wig, but not that she was a
+man. And the tactful Miss Porter had retired from the room.
+
+Mr Matthews was safe, but his nerve was gone. He replaced the hat and
+wig, and sent a waiter with a message to the remaining applicants.
+
+When Mr Matthews had finished his story two other members narrated how
+they had conspired together to get the game of kiss-in-the-ring played
+at a rectory garden party and had failed miserably.
+
+‘Now the only member left,’ said the chairman, ‘is Mr Cunliffe, and as
+he protested against the problem, and will not have competed——’
+
+‘Pardon me,’ said the sonorous and ecclesiastical voice of the Rev.
+Septimus Cunliffe. ‘I have not only competed, but I claim to be the
+winner.’
+
+‘One moment. This is a shock, and some restorative seems indicated.’
+The chairman fetched himself a brandy-and-soda from the side-table and
+resumed. ‘Now, if the reverend gentleman will continue the account of
+his exploits——’
+
+‘It has pained me to hear to-night aspersions on the character of our
+admirable Leonard. I admit that when I first heard the problem I was
+myself inclined to misjudge him. But on examining it more closely I
+saw that never had he risen to a higher pitch of austere, though
+cynical, morality. I saw that he intended that this prize should be
+won by the most high-minded member of the club—by the man whose mind
+was the least obsessed by thoughts of frivolity or flirtation.’
+
+‘Might I suggest,’ said the chairman, ‘that you should stop throwing
+bouquets to yourself, and tell us about these ten women that you’ve
+kissed?’
+
+‘That is precisely my point. Leonard does not say women. He does not
+say girls. He says females. My aunt is interested in smoke-gray
+Persian cats. She breeds them and deals in them on behalf of a
+charity, and you will generally find thirty or forty of them at her
+house. It is unhygienic to kiss cats, but I kissed ten of them, and my
+aunt was greatly pleased at this unusual demonstration of affection
+for her pets. Some of them seemed slightly bored, but not one was
+offended. When a cat is offended it tells you so. They were of an age
+for courtship—by males of their own species. Briefly, the cats and I
+conformed in all respects with the requirements of the problem.’
+
+‘Gentlemen,’ said the chairman, ‘the subtlety of our theologian has
+overcome you. Our cheque for one hundred and ten pounds will be drawn
+to the order of Mr Septimus Cunliffe.
+
+‘I will now read out the problem which will next engage your
+attention. It is entitled “The Free Meal Problem.” It is required
+within the space of twenty-four consecutive hours to be the guest of
+one person at breakfast, of another at luncheon, and of a third at
+dinner, the host being in each case a person whom the competitor has
+not to his knowledge seen, and with whom he has held no communication
+previous to the sunrise preceding the meal. No direct request for a
+meal may be made and no remuneration may be given in return for any
+meal.
+
+‘The adjudicator will be my learned friend Mr Quillian.’
+
+
+
+No. III.
+
+The Free Meal Problem
+
+Probably no member of the Problem Club enjoyed his evening of
+chairmanship more than Mr Quillian, K.C., who occupied the chair at
+the forty-fifth meeting. He liked the position of authority, and he
+liked the opportunity to exercise the nicety and precision of his
+legal mind. In the Free Meal Problem, on which he was to adjudicate,
+the ingenious head-waiter Leonard had made the following demand:—
+
+‘It is required within the space of twenty-four consecutive hours to
+be the guest of one person at breakfast, of another at luncheon, and
+of a third at dinner, the host being in each case a person whom the
+competitor has not to his knowledge seen, and with whom he has held no
+communication, previous to the sunrise preceding the meal. No direct
+request for a meal may be made, and no remuneration may be given in
+return for any meal.’
+
+‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Mr Quillian, when he had read this out, ‘this
+is a problem where the question of definition may arise. For instance,
+a child in a railway carriage offers a traveller a small piece of
+deteriorated bun. We will suppose that the hour is eight in the
+morning and that the traveller has not partaken of food since the
+previous midnight. In the improbable event of his consuming
+the—er—proffered dainty, he has undoubtedly broken his fast. But can
+he be said to have breakfasted? All I can say is that if the question
+of definition should arise to-night I will do my best to deal with it
+on common-sense lines, accurately but without pedantry.’
+
+The chairman then called upon Mr Wildersley, A.R.A., to give his
+experiences.
+
+Wildersley was a man of middle age who, like many artists, retained
+something of the child in his composition. He was a big, good-tempered
+man of rather rugged appearance. The cigars provided by the club, good
+though they were, had no attraction for him. He was a pipe-smoker, and
+between his sentences he contrived to keep his pipe alight.
+
+‘Well,’ he said, ‘I mayn’t be a winner, but I can’t be far out. I’ll
+tell you how I set about it. You may have noticed that chaps in the
+country with little places—three or four acres—are often very keen
+about them. In fact, the smaller the place the keener they are. My
+frame-maker, who lives near Harrow, used to spend most of his Sunday
+afternoon sitting behind a curtain with the window open, listening to
+what passers-by had to say about the godetias in his front garden. His
+daughter sometimes sits for me, and she told me that if the
+compliments on the garden came in nicely it put him in such a good
+temper that he used to let the family off church in the evening. I
+decided to work on the pride that the owner or tenant has in his
+place. I went down to the outer suburban belt—the part that they call
+the real country—and put up at an hotel. Then bright and early one
+morning I started out with my painting contraptions. I very soon
+spotted a place that I knew must be picturesque, because it had got
+some clipped yews and a sun-dial; besides, as the gate informed me, it
+was called the Dream House, and that proved it. So in I went, pitched
+my easel half-way up the drive, and got to work. An old gardener came
+up and asked me if I knew that I was trespassing. So I gave him a
+shilling, my card, and my apologies. I told him to keep the shilling
+and to deliver the card and apologies to his master as soon as that
+gentleman got down. That seemed to meet the case. In half an hour I
+had knocked off something showy, and then down the drive towards me
+came the owner, all smiles and Norfolk jacket, with a Cocker spaniel
+trailing behind him. I gave him the sketch, and he was as pleased as
+Punch about it. He took me round the garden to point out other
+picturesque spots, and then brought me into the house to introduce me
+to his family. Nice people, very. Almost before I knew it I was
+breakfasting with them, and being hungry I was pleased to find that
+they took breakfast seriously. They’d have kept me there all day if I
+could have stopped, but the business of this problem required me to
+move on.
+
+‘At half-past twelve I played the same trick again six miles up the
+road. Once more it worked perfectly. My hostess was an old lady of the
+almost extinct type that knows how to live. Everything about the place
+was just exactly. The luncheon was just exactly. And she gave me a
+very fine old Amontillado—a wine that we don’t see enough of nowadays.
+I can’t say whether it was the sherry or the success, but when I left
+I felt that I had got the club’s cheque for one hundred and ten pounds
+in my pocket and was listening to the chairman’s kindly words of
+congratulation. My mistake, of course. Begin well, but not too well.
+If you begin too well, mistrust it.
+
+‘About seven that evening I was painting a garden which was really
+rather good in that light. (I’d sent in my card and got permission.)
+As I was finishing the job and rather wrapped up in it I heard a
+Scotch accent behind me, saying that the sketch was “no bad” and
+“verra like.” He and I discussed the comparative merits of painting
+and photography. For accuracy he “prefaired the photograph, but then
+it didna give the colours.” As before, I presented the sketch, and I
+still think that he was pleased with it. He asked me to sign it, so as
+to prove to his friends that he “wasna lying” when he said that it was
+by a professed painter, and admitted that he would not grudge the
+money it would cost for framing and glazing. He then said he made no
+doubt I would be hurrying home for my dinner, and he would wish me
+good-evening. And so, in a manner of speaking, I fell at the last
+hurdle. Still, I suppose I score the breakfast and luncheon.’
+
+The Hon. James Feldane addressed the chairman:—
+
+‘I’d like your ruling on that point, sir. And it’s quite impartial,
+because I am not competing myself this time.’
+
+‘Not competing?’ said the chairman. ‘Might I ask what stopped you?
+Hitherto you have been one of the keenest and most sporting of our
+members, in spite of your air of—er—lassitude.’
+
+‘What stopped me,’ said Jimmy simply, ‘was breakfast. Breakfast is bad
+enough at any time, especially if you’ve been rather late and busy the
+night before. But to breakfast with an absolute stranger on chance
+food, and to go out and dig for the invitation first—well, it was
+unthinkable. I’m sorry to spoil old Wildersley’s score, and if he’d
+bunged me one of his sketches instead of chucking them about the
+suburbs I might have been able to stifle the voice of conscience. As
+it is, I feel bound to raise the objection that he gave remuneration
+for the breakfast and luncheon—to wit, two sketches.’
+
+‘The gift of the sketches was precedent to the meals and was
+unconditional, as we see by the fact that the third sketch produced no
+meal. The sketches were a lure, and the use of a lure is not
+prohibited. They were not remuneration given in return for a meal. I
+should not even say that the meals were remuneration for the sketches;
+they were merely an expression of gratitude. Mr Feldane’s objection is
+disallowed.’
+
+That habitual non-starter Mr Harding Pope, M.P., was now asked if he
+had made his choice between competition or resignation.
+
+‘I have competed, of course. But I have only the most dismal of
+failures to record. I was down at my constituency, and I picked out
+three new residents on whom I had a plausible excuse for calling. I
+’phoned the first to ask if he could see me at nine, apologising for
+the earliness of the hour. He said that the time suited him very well,
+and that, as a matter of fact, he always breakfasted at seven, so as
+to begin work early. The man whom I called on at lunch-time could only
+give me ten minutes, he said, as he was lunching out. The third did
+ask me to dinner, but not on that day. And probably all three have put
+me down as a man who calls at tactless and inconvenient times. I can
+only say that I am ready to suffer far worse things for the privilege
+of retaining my membership.’
+
+Sir Charles Bunford had perhaps shown rather more strategy, but had
+only one degree less of failure to report. He had obtained letters of
+introduction to three noted food-cranks, all of them ardent
+proselytisers. To the first he represented himself as suffering from a
+list of symptoms. Sir Charles had memorised them carefully from the
+advertisement of a patent pill. He said that he was sorry to call at
+so early an hour, but after a night of suffering he had determined
+that he would begin on a new system of diet at once.
+
+‘For instance,’ he said, ‘what ought I to have for breakfast this
+morning? What do you have yourself?’
+
+The food-crank said that he would not only tell him; he would ask him
+to share his simple but healthful fare.
+
+At this point in his narrative the chairman interposed.
+
+‘This is a case where the question of definition may arise. I must ask
+you to tell us, Sir Charles, what the food-crank gave you for
+breakfast.’
+
+‘It was not so much breakfast as a premature dessert with a hospital
+flavour to it. It consisted of uncooked fruit and lessons in the
+difficult art of mastication. With that we drank a special sort of
+coffee, from which all deleterious matter, including the taste of
+coffee, had been entirely removed. But the question of definition need
+not worry you, as I can’t claim to have won. The second food-crank,
+whom I visited at lunch-time, told me that his chief secret was never
+to eat in the middle of the day. The third, whom I tackled in the
+evening, was so ascetic in his conversation and so extremely anxious
+to keep me out of his dining-room, that I formed a suspicion, perhaps
+unworthy, that the man’s practice differed somewhat from his
+preaching. So I’ve failed, but it was quite an amusing day.’
+
+That great epicure, Mr Matthews, had not competed, and gave his
+reasons with a solemnity that contrasted with his usual cheeriness.
+
+‘Thank Heaven,’ he said, ‘I have a sophisticated appetite! Thank
+Heaven again I have an over-educated palate! Starvation for
+twenty-four hours I might have possibly faced. But the horrors of
+casual hospitality were more than I could risk.’
+
+‘Ah, well,’ said the chairman, ‘I must turn to Mr Pusely-Smythe, who
+is acting as secretary for us to-night. I presume he has added one
+more to his list of triumphs.’
+
+‘The pangs of failure,’ said that saturnine gentleman, ‘are increased
+by the jeers of the learned chairman. I ought to have won. I claim to
+have won. But I confess that it will not surprise me if I am reduced
+to an equality with my artist friend. I shall have a melancholy
+pleasure in sharing the prize with him. He tried to work upon
+gratitude, and so did I. The particular brand of gratitude that I
+decided to exploit for my purpose was the gratitude that a woman feels
+for the return of her lost pet dog. It seems to vary inversely as the
+value of the dog, but it is always great.
+
+‘You will perhaps remember that about a year ago Leonard set us a
+peculiarly sinful problem, which he styled the Substitution Problem,
+and that in the complicated and unjustifiable operations by which I
+succeeded in winning the prize I made the acquaintance of James Tigg,
+and did him a good turn. Now James, known to his intimate friends as
+“Kidney,” is by profession a French polisher, but does not practice,
+and his favourite occupation is the appropriation of dogs, his gifts
+in that direction amounting almost to genius.
+
+‘I sent for James. I told him that I thought it likely that three
+ladies, living in different suburbs, would lose their pet dogs and
+that I should know where to find them, and should be enabled by the
+address on the dog-collar to return each of the little darlings to its
+owner. At the same time I put five golden sovereigns on the table.
+
+‘“Likely?” said James. “It’s a ruddy certainty.” He then picked up the
+coins in an absent-minded way and instructed me as to details.
+
+‘Two days later, at an early hour in the morning, I called on Lady
+Pingle at her house at Epsom with her ladyship’s alleged Pekingese
+under my arm. I told her how I had found the poor little thing
+wandering on Wimbledon Common late the night before almost in a state
+of collapse, had given it food and shelter, and had taken the earliest
+opportunity to relieve her anxiety by its return.
+
+‘Her gratitude was almost frantic. She kissed the dog ardently, and at
+one moment I was almost afraid she was going to kiss me too. She did
+not do that, but she did insist on my breakfasting with her, and I
+accepted. And let me tell that over-educated sybarite Matthews, with
+his sneers at casual hospitality, that he himself never breakfasted
+better.
+
+‘I lunched with Mrs Hastonbury at her residence at Leatherhead. In
+this way she showed her gratitude for the return of “Bimby”—a
+chocolate-coloured Pom with a short temper. But I must confess that
+she was not nearly as quick off the mark as Lady Pingle. I had to
+inquire about hotels in the neighbourhood before she saw which way her
+duty lay.
+
+‘The third dog that I had to deliver, a mouldy little pug, belonged to
+the wife of a curate living much nearer home. She was grateful and she
+was hospitable. She said that they never dined but that they were just
+sitting down to high tea, and she hoped I would join them. It was an
+evening meal substituted for dinner, and I contend that I am entitled
+to count it as dinner.’
+
+‘Kindly tell us what you had,’ said the chairman.
+
+‘What? The internal evidence? Certainly. I had cocoa, scrambled eggs,
+and seed-cake. And I hope you will take a lenient view of it.’
+
+‘Your hostess herself maintained that it was not dinner, and the
+internal evidence, as you call it, entirely supports her view. Your
+career of crime will only give you a score of two. The high tea is
+disallowed. I will now call upon Major Byles.’
+
+‘The sacrifice that I made to luck on the occasion of our last
+competition,’ said Major Byles, ‘has brought me success at last. I
+claim to be a winner, and await your decision with confidence. It
+happened that two of my friends both wanted a furnished house at
+Brightgate for the winter, and did not want the bother of going down
+to make their selection. I saw my chance at once. I might never have
+thought of it, but I didn’t miss it when it was shoved at me. I said
+at once that I was thinking of running down to Brightgate for a day or
+two, and that it always interested me to look over houses. They told
+me their requirements and let me take on the job for them.
+
+‘The house-agent at Brightgate had only six houses on his books that
+were at all suitable. He gave me orders to view, and I started
+business at eight one morning. I started badly.
+
+‘At the first house a proud but pretty parlour-maid told me that it
+was not usual to show furnished houses at that hour, but I could call
+again at eleven. At the second house there was only a caretaker. That
+left me with, so to speak, four cartridges and three birds to kill. I
+hurried on to the third house, which was half a mile away. By a bit of
+luck I met the owner on the doorstep, and told him my alleged
+business.
+
+‘“You’re very early,” he said. “Why, we haven’t had breakfast yet.”
+
+‘“No more have I,” I said. “But last year I lost a good house through
+being too late, and I thought I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.”
+
+‘He was a genial old chap. He said the best thing I could do was to
+come in and breakfast with him, and by the time I had finished the
+servants would have got the bedrooms tidied up. I did my best to
+accept with decent hesitation.
+
+‘At lunch-time I tried the fourth house on my list and struck another
+caretaker. I couldn’t afford another miss. I got lunch at the fifth
+house, but I had to be no end complimentary before I could get them up
+to the point. In fact, it wasn’t till I told the woman that her
+pimply-faced son was a fine upstanding young fellow that she decided
+to order the extra chop.
+
+‘But at the sixth house I had no trouble about dinner. The owner
+turned out to be a friend of a friend of mine. He fetched up a bottle
+of the ’87 in my honour and insisted on my stopping the night.
+
+‘They were all _pukka_ meals, and all the conditions were observed. Am
+I a winner, Mr Chairman?’
+
+‘Certainly. Does anybody else claim to be a winner?’
+
+‘I do,’ said Dr Alden. ‘The day before yesterday a doctor rang me up
+and asked me to see a patient of his—a woman with a wealthy, devoted,
+and very nervous husband. That was at eight in the morning. My car
+happened to be at the door, and it suited me to go right away. I saw
+the patient, was able to reassure the husband, and had breakfast with
+him. Later in the morning a man was introduced to me who was
+interested in old glass and had heard of me as a collector. He was
+very keen that I should lunch with him and see what he had got. He was
+a pleasant chap and I accepted. When I got back, a doctor, quite an
+old pal of mine, said that he was going to take me to dine that night
+with a man I had never seen before. It seemed that the stranger had
+staying with him for one night a French specialist in my own line. The
+Frenchman was anxious to meet me, and his host was anxious to please
+him. So he had tried to arrange it through a mutual friend. I was
+myself keen to meet that Frenchman, and so he succeeded.
+
+‘Of course, I didn’t arrange all this—couldn’t have arranged it. As a
+matter of fact, I had never intended to compete this time. But destiny
+decided to take a hand in this competition. I claim to be a winner.’
+
+‘An interesting point,’ said the chairman. ‘Can a man be said to win
+who has never competed? I shall decide in Dr Alden’s favour. Leonard
+says nothing of intention. He only demands certain facts. And these
+facts the doctor by an amazing stroke of luck has been able to
+provide. The prize of one hundred and ten pounds will be divided
+equally between him and Major Byles, unless there is any further
+claim.’
+
+No further claim was forthcoming. The chairman then announced that Mr
+Matthews would preside at the next meeting, and read out the problem
+set for the following month, called ‘The Win-and-Lose Problem,’ and
+there was a general feeling that it would take some doing.
+
+
+
+No. IV.
+
+The Win-and-Lose Problem
+
+At the forty-sixth meeting of the Problem Club, the waiters having
+left the room, Mr Matthews, smiling and rubicund, took his place as
+chairman. He finished his glass of an old and veritable cognac, lit
+with care and a cedar-wood spill a cigar that can only be obtained by
+the favour of the planter, and read out the terms of the Win-and-Lose
+Problem.
+
+‘It is required to win an even bet of one pound, resulting in a net
+loss of one pound to the winner; and to lose an even bet of one pound
+resulting in a net gain of one pound to the loser. No competitor is to
+make more than two bets.’
+
+‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr Matthews, ‘I’m supposed to make one or two
+preliminary observations. Now here’s a thing that strikes me. You may
+remember that when we tackled the Kiss Problem, our reverend friend Mr
+Cunliffe said that it revealed the artful Leonard as an apostle of
+morality. Of course, the padre took the jack-pot on that occasion, and
+so he may have been prejudiced, but it looks to me now as if he may
+have been right. See for yourselves. You’ve got to win a bet and lose
+money by it, and then you’ve got to lose a bet and make money by it,
+and at the end of it you’re left just where you were when you started.
+There’s not much deadly fascination and excitement about that—why,
+it’s enough to make you lose your taste for gambling.
+
+‘Yes, and there’s one more point. I noticed a good deal of
+preoccupation at dinner to-night. Very few of you seemed to be putting
+your heart into the work, and I believe I was the only man who had the
+_vol-au-vent_ brought back to him for further reference. Great mistake
+that of yours. Some of you tried to work out sums on the back of your
+menus. I detected Major Byles, with corrugated brows, in the act of
+making pencil calculations on the tablecloth. Yes, there’s not a doubt
+that Leonard has given you a worrying time, and some of you were
+wrestling with it right up to the last moment. It won’t surprise me if
+there’s not a winner among the whole lot of you. However, we’ll begin
+with a likely chance. You, Sir Charles, have got a reputation as a
+learned man; can I ask the secretary to draw a cheque in your favour?’
+
+‘I’d be sorry to stop you,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t
+claim it. Archæology don’t help with arithmetic. As an eminent
+classical scholar once observed, I’ve not got the low cunning that
+makes a mathematician. The only thing I could think of was to insure
+the chances of each bet appropriately, but it seemed to me that you
+would regard such insurance as being in itself a bet.’
+
+‘I certainly should. You don’t change a thing by changing its name.
+You are limited to the two bets, and I shall not allow four even if
+you call two of them insurance. Come now, Jimmy, have you profited
+sufficiently by your racing experiences to have won the prize
+to-night?’
+
+‘Profited by my racing experiences?’ said the Hon. James Feldane
+wearily. ‘If you’d go and talk to the bank that has charge of my
+overdraft you wouldn’t use words like those. But backing horses,
+though it’s a mug’s game, is, at any rate, easy. There are too many
+complications in Leonard’s fancy work for a simple child of Nature
+like myself. I can’t engineer a two-cylinder gamble with a double
+back-jump actuated by the cam-shaft. The only man I know who could
+face it without mental overstrain is my bookmaker. He’s a wonder. He’d
+give you fifteen different ways of perforating this problem inside a
+minute. No juggle with figures can beat him. I don’t know if you’d
+call it a talent or a disease, but I’ve not got it. As a competitor,
+I’ve failed, but I don’t mind admitting that I’ve made a little actual
+money out of the competition.’ Jimmy smiled reminiscently.
+
+‘May we have the details?’ asked the chairman.
+
+‘I’d sooner you got them from Hesseltine.’
+
+The chairman called upon Mr Hesseltine.
+
+‘I don’t wonder,’ said that young man, ‘that Jimmy don’t like to tell
+you. If I’d stolen money from a crossing-sweeper in St James’s Street
+I shouldn’t be proud of it myself. The silly ass thinks he’s scored
+off me, but as I was out to lose a quid anyhow——’
+
+‘May we have the actual facts?’ suggested the chairman.
+
+‘Certainly. I was thinking about this problem and I got a sudden
+brain-wave. I saw how to do the first half—to win a bet of a pound
+that would leave me one pound down when I’d won it. Well, I happened
+to be going up St James’s Street with Jimmy later that morning, and by
+way of leading up to it I asked him what he generally gave to a
+street-beggar. “Nix,” he said. “What do you?” So I told him that I
+generally gave a sovereign. He told me in his coarse sort of way that
+he didn’t believe it. That was what I had expected. “All right,” I
+said, “I’ll bet you a pound that I give two golden sovereigns to the
+next beggar or crossing-sweeper I come across.” He thought about it
+and then said: “I’ll take that, and to guard against accidents I’ll be
+the next beggar. Give me a little assistance, kind sir?”
+
+‘Of course, in that way he put himself on velvet. Whether I decided to
+win my bet or to lose it, Jimmy had to make one sovereign out of me.
+Didn’t affect me at all, for according to Leonard I’d got to win my
+bet and lose a pound by it, which I did. The only person hit was the
+crossing-sweeper up the street, who would otherwise have made two
+quid. Of course, what I ought to have done was to have handed Jimmy
+over to the police for begging—wish I’d thought of it.
+
+‘Well, I negotiated the first half of the problem, but the second half
+beat me. I’m inclined to think the sting of the beast is in its tail.
+It takes two people to make a bet. I’m not a poet or any sort of
+imaginative chap, but I could think of a bet which for a dead
+certainty it would pay me to lose. I couldn’t think of anybody, even
+including that rotter Jimmy, who would be fool enough to take it. You
+must try somebody else, Mr Chairman.’
+
+‘Major Byles?’ the chairman suggested.
+
+‘As a head-waiter,’ said the Major, ‘I’ve got nothing against Leonard.
+As a setter of problems he’s given general satisfaction, but this time
+I should like to back my bill to the effect that he has mixed up too
+much arithmetic with the sport. I’ve spent a month on this
+win-and-lose business, all the time with the feeling that a boy fresh
+from school would work out the whole thing on the back of an envelope
+in ten minutes, and I’ve done nothing. I spent the first fortnight at
+home, and at the end of it I had contracted insomnia, headache, and
+what you might call pardonable irritability. At the end of that time
+my wife said that of course she had noticed the change, and that I
+seemed to be doing sums all day, and that if we were ruined I had
+better say so and she would face it bravely. I reassured her and came
+to town on important business. I used tons of the club notepaper for
+my calculations, put an undue strain on the club wastepaper-baskets,
+quarrelled with two of my best friends, was sarcastic in addressing
+club servants, and am expecting a letter from the committee to ask for
+my resignation. The amazing thing is that all the time I have been on
+the very point of getting the solution. In my opinion it’s the most
+horribly worrying thing that Leonard has ever given us.’
+
+‘Well,’ said the chairman, ‘artists are not generally supposed to be
+particularly strong at arithmetic, but I’ll ask Mr Wildersley what
+he’s done about it.’
+
+‘Can’t say I agree with the Major,’ said Wildersley. ‘I call it a
+jolly easy problem, and I claim to be a winner. It didn’t take me any
+time to think of it, either. I got a man into my studio, to see
+alleged works of art, and I said to him that I would bet him a pound I
+would give him two pounds. He took me. “You’ve lost,” I said. “Pay up,
+and then I’ll pay up.” He handed me a sovereign and I handed him two
+pounds of potatoes in a paper bag. So I’d won a pound in money and
+lost two pounds in potatoes. If you win one pound and lose two, that
+makes a net loss of one pound on the transaction, and so I’d done the
+first half of the problem.
+
+‘The chap seemed to be grumbling rather. “What’s the matter with you?”
+I said. “The green-grocer told me that they were the kind he eats
+himself, and that he could guarantee them.”
+
+‘“I don’t want the beastly potatoes,” he said. “The whole thing’s a
+dirty swindle.” I thought he’d say that. So I told him that it was no
+swindle and I would be quite willing to take the same bet myself. He
+jumped at it, but to make sure he said he would bet me a sovereign he
+would give me two pounds. I took him, lost, paid the sovereign, and
+got back my two pounds of potatoes. That finished the second half of
+the problem. I’d lost a bet of one pound, and had made two pounds,
+giving a net gain of one pound. Naturally he wanted to know what I had
+done it for, and I said it was to stop him from trying to talk about
+art—the chap’s a critic.’
+
+Mr Matthews took two minutes and a brandy-and-soda before giving his
+decision as follows:—
+
+‘Ingenious, but it won’t do. Mr Wildersley professes to have
+subtracted money to the value of a sovereign from two pounds by weight
+of potatoes, and to have got a result of one pound. Of what did that
+pound consist? Even after dinner we can’t have mental confusion of
+this kind. The claim is disallowed.’
+
+Mr Harding Pope, M.P., made an uninteresting confession of failure,
+and the chairman then called upon Mr Quillian, K.C., who was acting as
+secretary for the evening.
+
+Mr Quillian removed his pince-nez and glanced round the room with that
+look of amiable superiority that some people found irritating.
+
+‘I claim to have won this fairly simple competition,’ he said. ‘Of
+course, it has a psychological as well as an arithmetical side; the
+bets have to be actually made and not merely worked out on paper. I
+made my plan one afternoon, and then went over to my club to see if I
+could find my friend Blenkinsop. He is generally at the club at that
+hour, and I felt sure that he would accept the two bets that I had to
+propose.
+
+‘Well, as it happened, Blenkinsop was not at the club, but I found Mr
+Pusely-Smythe alone in the smaller reading-room. I’ve had to submit to
+a good deal of chaff—not particularly amusing—from Pusely-Smythe, and
+by way of return it seemed appropriate that he should help me to win
+our one hundred and ten pound prize. Also, if he will forgive me for
+saying so, he has just the commonplace shrewdness that I required in
+my victim.
+
+‘After a little preliminary conversation, I produced my
+sovereign-case. I told him that there was a certain sum of money in
+gold in that case, and that I was willing to bet him a sovereign I
+would make him a present of it. He said, as I knew he would, that this
+meant that the sum of money in the case was half a sovereign, and that
+in consequence he would lose ten shillings on the transaction if he
+took the bet.
+
+‘“Yes,” I said, “there is that possibility, but I am willing to
+protect you against it by a second bet. We will agree that the loser
+by the first transaction shall have the option to give the other man
+double what he has lost for double the sum now in my sovereign-case.
+And I will bet you a sovereign that he will not exercise that option.
+You see how it works out. If the sum in my sovereign-case is half a
+sovereign, as you suppose, you will lose ten shillings on the first
+transaction, but you will win a sovereign on the second transaction by
+exercising an option to exchange twenty shillings for twenty
+shillings.”
+
+‘Without taking the time to think, he accepted both bets. I then
+opened my sovereign-case and showed him that it contained two pounds.
+I gave them to him, and as by so doing I had won my bet he gave me one
+of them back again. Kindly observe that I had now solved the first
+part of Leonard’s problem. I had won an even bet of one pound the net
+result of which was that I had lost a pound. Having made myself the
+loser on the first transaction, I now had the option to exchange twice
+my loss against twice the sum that had been in the sovereign-case—that
+is, to exchange two pounds for four pounds. I had bet that the loser
+would not exercise this option. I lost the bet and exercised the
+option. Thus, I lost an even bet of one pound with the net result that
+I made one pound. This settles the second half of the problem. I
+await, sir, with confidence, your decision in my favour.’
+
+Mr Matthews referred once more to the terms of the problem. ‘Yes,’ he
+said, ‘it seems to me that you have met all Leonard’s requirements.
+Very smart bit of work, in my opinion. You take the club cheque for
+one hundred and ten pounds, unless, of course, some claim to share it
+with you is substantiated. Is there any such claim?’
+
+‘Naturally, there’s mine,’ said Pusely-Smythe, with his deceptive air
+of melancholy.
+
+‘Yours? How did you do it?’
+
+‘My learned friend has just been telling you. I was going away for a
+brief and well-earned holiday, and I had decided to give the
+competition a miss this time. As I was sitting in the club, studying a
+guide-book, in came Quillian looking like a thimble-rigger who has
+just set up his little plush-covered table. He offered me his first
+bet. I put it aside. He offered the second, and he says I didn’t take
+time to think. Thought with me does not take the prolonged period of
+gestation that it does in the case of the nobler animals, such as
+K.C.’s. I thought two thoughts. The first was that Quillian was out
+after this competition. The second was that when two men gamble
+together what one wins the other loses and vice versa. That was
+enough. I took him. He won the first bet but lost a pound by it. It
+follows that I lost the first bet but won a pound by it. Similarly,
+when he lost the bet but won a pound I won the bet and lost a pound.
+It’s all very simple and elementary. I hope he’s going to make a
+victim of me again soon. This time without any effort on my part he
+has shoved fifty-five pounds at me. I’ve only had to take it. And I
+don’t care whether it was benevolence or mental short-sightedness—I’m
+going to thank him just the same.’
+
+‘The claim’s allowed, of course,’ said the chairman. ‘The thing that
+makes me mad is that I didn’t see it myself until you pointed it out.
+It’s obvious. It simply shrieks at you. My mind must be going.’
+
+‘The menu that you devised for our dinner to-night, sir,’ said
+Pusely-Smythe, ‘was sufficient proof of the contrary. Those that study
+the recondite must sometimes find the obvious out of their focus.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ said Mr Matthews. ‘I’ll learn the last sentence by
+heart—it’ll make a ripping excuse next time I do a dam’ silly thing.’
+
+Cheques were drawn for Quillian and Pusely-Smythe, and the chairman
+then opened the envelope containing the problem that Leonard had set
+for the following month. It was entitled ‘The Handkerchief Problem,’
+and on the face of it scarcely supported the theory that the ingenious
+Leonard was a Great Moral Teacher. The Hon. James Feldane was reminded
+that it would be his duty to preside on the next occasion and to
+adjudicate on this problem, which was as follows: ‘It is required to
+steal as many handkerchiefs as possible from a member or members of
+the Problem Club. Violence may not be used and thefts detected in the
+act will not score. Restitution will be made of the stolen
+handkerchiefs within twenty-four hours of the adjudication, but
+felonious intent is to be presumed in every case.’
+
+‘Rotten luck,’ said Feldane, to his friend, Hesseltine. ‘I should have
+enjoyed working on this problem. It appeals to my natural instincts. I
+should probably have won it, and in that case might have given one or
+two of them something on account. And so this has to be the occasion
+when I’m shut out of the competition and have to act as chairman.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Hesseltine. ‘Nobody’s so sure of himself as the
+non-starter.’
+
+
+
+No. V.
+
+The Handkerchief Problem
+
+At the forty-seventh meeting of the Problem Club, the chair was taken
+by the youngest member, the Hon. James Feldane. That weary young
+gentleman having provided himself with a double portion of green
+Chartreuse, for the purpose, as he said, of supporting the dignity of
+the position, opened his adjudication a little informally.
+
+‘Let’s get started,’ he said. ‘The first job is to read out the
+particular teaser with which the wily Leonard has been worrying you
+poor old things during the past month. Here goes.’
+
+The terms of the Handkerchief Problem were then read out. They were as
+follows: ‘It is required to steal as many handkerchiefs as possible
+from a member or members of the Problem Club. Violence may not be used
+and thefts detected in the act will not score. Restitution will be
+made of the stolen handkerchiefs within twenty-four hours of the
+adjudication, but felonious intent is to be presumed in every case.’
+
+‘I wish I could have been a competitor this time,’ the chairman
+continued, ‘instead of being stuck up here to give the momentous
+decision. I should have had some sport, and handkerchief-sneaking
+falls nicely within my line of intellect; I might have scooped the
+prize. But as I’m debarred from scoring off you, I’ve taken jolly good
+care that none of you should score off me. For the past month every
+handkerchief I’ve used has been attached to the interior of the pocket
+by a steel chain and swivel, and those not in use have been locked
+away in a safe. My valet thinks I’ve gone off my head, of course, but
+then he’d have been bound to have thought that sooner or later,
+anyhow. The great point is that not one of you low pickpockets has
+been able to get a handkerchief out of me. We’ll now pursue the
+inquiry. Hesseltine, are you guilty or not guilty?’
+
+‘Guilty, m’lord,’ said young Hesseltine cheerfully. ‘I may not be
+winner, but I think it would be safe to back me for a place. I struck
+early. At our last meeting, as soon as this problem was announced, I
+slipped stealthily and unobserved from the room. I had rightly
+concluded that there would be no attendant in the cloak-room at that
+hour. If there had been I should have sent him away to get me a box of
+matches. From the overcoats of members I secured a nice little haul of
+nine handkerchiefs. One of them, a silk bandanna, the property of
+Major Byles, was big enough for two, and ought to count as two.’
+
+‘Might count two on a division, as they say at the elections,’ said
+the chairman. ‘But in the undivided state it counts one. Anything
+further to say?’
+
+‘That was my only _coup_. The only thing to add is that one of the
+nine belonged to a gentleman who did not start keeping them in the
+safe quite soon enough.’
+
+‘All right,’ said Jimmy. ‘Speaking entirely _sotto voce_ and _ex
+officio_, I’ll be even with you for that one of these days. Meanwhile,
+Mr Matthews, it will be your painful duty as secretary to give that
+thief a score of nine.’
+
+The chairman then called upon Mr Quillian, K.C., whose story was
+connected with the story of Mr Pusely-Smythe. In both cases it was a
+story of failure. Both men had hit on precisely the same idea.
+
+Quillian called on Pusely-Smythe at a time when he knew he would be
+out, but would be expected back shortly. He, as he anticipated, was
+recognised by the servant and asked if he would wait. During the
+period of waiting Quillian made a swift and silent excursion to
+Pusely-Smythe’s bedroom with a view to abstracting his available store
+of handkerchiefs. But the chairman was not the only member who had
+taken the precaution of keeping his handkerchiefs in an unlikely
+place. Not one solitary handkerchief could Quillian find. And while he
+was thus engaged Pusely-Smythe had been calling on Quillian with
+similar intentions, similar practice, and a similar result.
+
+‘You’re both too clever to live,’ observed the chairman, ‘but you’ve
+cancelled one another for once. Mr Harding Pope, as a politician, you
+should be familiar with the paths of dishonesty. How did you get on?’
+
+The Member of Parliament gave a somewhat sickly smile.
+
+‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that I have not competed. I represent a Dissenting
+constituency, which is careful—almost to the point of being
+inquisitorial—as to my character and private life. Had I competed, it
+is easily possible that I might have been arrested. I could have
+explained, but all explanations come too late. It would have done me
+great injury. In the circumstances I have decided to resign my
+membership of this club, and my resignation will be in the chairman’s
+hands at the next meeting. I have enjoyed these meetings immensely,
+but I have been—and am likely to be—too often debarred from taking an
+active part in the competition as a member should. The delightful but
+unscrupulous Leonard asks too much of me. Should I ever find myself in
+a position of greater freedom and less responsibility, I shall
+certainly crave the honour of re-election.’
+
+‘Sorry,’ said the chairman. ‘I’m sure we all are. But the rules of the
+club do require that members shall be workers and not merely
+onlookers. If ever the political cat jumps the other way, and you’re
+thrown out of Westminster into the cold, cold night, I make no doubt
+that at the first vacancy we shall welcome the lost sheep back to the
+nest. I will now call upon Major Byles.’
+
+The Major lived in the country. There were unusually good golf links
+in the neighbourhood, and he was both a good player and a good host.
+He had used his opportunities as he explained.
+
+‘I worked on a system. I waited till my man was absolutely wrapped up
+in the game, meanwhile locating his handkerchief carefully. Then, at
+the moment when he was following the ball with the eye, I put in some
+swift finger-work. It was not always successful. The Doctor, for
+instance, bowled me out twice—he’s got eyes in the back of his head.
+But I got six handkerchiefs that way, and a seventh from a rain-coat
+that had been left in my hall. I’ve good reason to know that I’m not a
+winner, but it’s not bad—eh?’
+
+‘A good sporting game,’ said the chairman. ‘These thefts from the
+person ought really to count more than easy overcoat-shots. They want
+more dexterity. The others only require brain-work. Still, I have to
+administer the law as Leonard lays it down. So far Hesseltine wins.’
+
+‘But he won’t win,’ said the Major mysteriously. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve got
+good reason to know it.’ And he proceeded to compound for himself a
+due measure of whisky and seltzer-water.
+
+Dr Alden, who was next called upon, could claim a score of only two.
+But so far as it went, it was brilliant and audacious work. One of the
+handkerchiefs had been taken from Sir Charles Bunford and one from Mr
+Matthews, and in both cases the theft had been committed in Piccadilly
+in broad daylight and under the eyes of the police.
+
+‘It’s clear where your real talent lies,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’re wasted
+in Harley Street. However, time’s getting on, and a few bad men would
+like a rubber of bridge before we part. Will any member who claims to
+have beaten Hesseltine’s score kindly hold up a hand?’
+
+The Rev. Septimus Cunliffe and Mr Wildersley, A.R.A., both held up
+hands.
+
+‘What?’ said the chairman. ‘Our padre in the sneak-thief business? Has
+he no respect for his cloth? Leonard has a lot to answer for. However,
+we will hear you, Mr Cunliffe.’
+
+[Illustration: Three gentlemen in a smoking-room, smoking and
+drinking. One man is wearing a clerical vest and collar; the other two
+are dressed in tuxedo dinner suits and have monocles. One man is
+speaking, addressing the room at large. He leans casually against a
+table upon which can be seen a cigar box, a whisky bottle, and
+drinking glasses. Caption: ‘“Has he no respect for his cloth?”’]
+
+‘Leonard,’ said that broad-minded cleric in his sonorous voice, ‘has
+once more revealed himself as a great moralist. He has shown us that
+the thief, a bad man, must none the less have good qualities, and has
+taught us to differentiate the good from the bad. The spirit of
+adventure, the clever planning, the manual dexterity displayed by the
+thief, are all worthy of praise. It is solely to his felonious
+intentions that we should take exception. Leonard has expressly
+provided that for the purposes of this competition the felonious
+intentions are to be purely imaginary; they are to be supposed.
+Consequently, I could approach the problem with a clear conscience.
+And I admit that in compiling a score of fourteen my cloth has been of
+assistance. Suspicion does not attach readily to a man in clerical
+attire.
+
+‘To proceed to my story, one Saturday, early in the month, I had been
+down to play golf with our friend, the Major. (By the way, you’ll send
+me back my handkerchief, Major. Already in the post? Thanks.) On
+leaving his house I noticed at the back entrance a laundry van, in
+charge of a sleepy-looking rustic. The name and address of the laundry
+were proclaimed on the van in large letters. My knowledge of the
+country showed me that in approaching the Major’s house that van would
+pass an inn called the Royal George, at a distance of two miles from
+the house, and a turning to the railway-station at a distance of one
+mile. That made everything easy. On the following Saturday I was on
+that road three miles from the house. My boots were dusty and I looked
+as tired as I could. I waited till the van came along, hailed it, and
+asked the driver to give me a lift as far as the station turning. He
+was not averse to making an extra shilling, and I climbed up. For the
+first mile I was talking to the man and making friends with him. When
+we reached The Royal George I suggested that a pint at my expense
+would not come amiss to him, and that I would look after the horse
+while he was inside. He was good enough to say that I was a parson
+after his own heart, and handed me the reins. The horse did not need
+any looking after; it was not that kind of horse. In the interior of
+the van I explored a laundry basket, and annexed fourteen of the
+Major’s handkerchiefs. (I have left them in the cloak-room for you,
+Major.) When the driver came out I was holding the reins and looking
+pensive. I stepped off at the station turning. What is your decision,
+Mr Chairman?’
+
+‘Brainy piece of work, and a fair score of fourteen. My idea was that
+nobody would get beyond fifteen. Did you beat that, Wildersley?’
+
+That large but child-like artist smiled. ‘I claim a score of one
+hundred and forty-four.’
+
+‘Gee-whizz! I didn’t know there were so many handkerchiefs in the
+world. Which members did you get them from?’
+
+‘I got the whole lot from you, in spite of the steel chain and the
+locked safe.’
+
+‘But I’ve not got as many. It’s an impossibility. However, let’s have
+the yarn.’
+
+‘You’ll find it’s all right, Mr Chairman. You young men are so
+careless that you don’t know what you’ve got. Some time ago I had to
+execute a Deed of Gift—making over a rotten-cotton picture of mine to
+a provincial gallery. Up to that time I didn’t know the difference
+between a Deed of Gift and a hole in a wall, but you learn things as
+you go on living. When this problem was set, I saw that by a Deed of
+Gift and a small investment I could do myself good. My first step was
+to buy twelve dozen handkerchiefs—top quality and deucedly expensive.
+I had a monogram of the chairman’s initials excellently designed by
+myself and embroidered by the shop on all those handkerchiefs. This
+having been done, I collected my parcel of lingerie and went off to my
+solicitor, who is of the old-established, eighteen-carat type. I told
+him what I wanted, and the shock nearly killed him. When he got better
+I explained that it was a joke, but that it was essential in order to
+get the laugh that the Deed of Gift making over the handkerchiefs
+should be all correct, water-tight, and copper-bottomed. He does not
+understand jokes and will believe anything about them. So he
+engineered me a lovely Deed. I then addressed the parcel to the Hon.
+James Feldane, and went off with it in a taxi to Jimmy’s place. I
+deposited the parcel, with the address downwards, on a chair in the
+hall, and put my overcoat and hat on the top of it. I then went in and
+had a few words with Jimmy about a bridge-problem. I had now made the
+handkerchiefs Jimmy’s property by Deed of Gift. I had delivered them
+at his residence. It only remained to steal them, and that was easy.
+It’s always easier to steal a thing if the owner doesn’t know he’s got
+it. Besides, as it was half-past eleven in the morning, Jimmy’s
+costume consisted of a bath-gown, a Turkish cigarette, and a bad
+headache, which excused him from coming out into the hall with me when
+I left. I picked up my hat and coat, and a parcel containing one
+hundred and forty-four handkerchiefs, the property of the chairman,
+and went off. He will find the parcel returned to him when he gets
+home to-night. And I should like his decision.’
+
+‘Much obliged to you, Wildersley. It’s ironical that I can make a bit,
+as long as I’m not competing. All the same, the decision must be held
+up a moment. The fact that you’ve provided me with more handkerchiefs
+than I shall ever use this side of the silent tomb might influence my
+judicial mind. I must have a second opinion—counsel’s. Will Mr
+Quillian kindly give us his views on this claim.’
+
+‘I don’t usually give opinions in this off-hand way,’ said Mr
+Quillian, ‘but on this occasion I have really no doubt. The Deed, sir,
+was duly executed, so we are informed. The goods in question were
+bona-fide intended to become your property, and have in fact become
+so. They were delivered at your residence. In the absence of felonious
+intent I should say that they had not been stolen, but the terms of
+the problem state that felonious intent is to be presumed. Your
+ignorance of the whole transaction does not seem to me to affect it.
+In your place, sir, I should have no hesitation in finding the claim
+good—and I only wish I had thought of the idea myself—I ought to have
+done.’
+
+‘Thank you, Mr Quillian. Then I decide that Wildersley is the winner.
+Mr Matthews, will you please draw the usual cheque to Mr Wildersley’s
+order?’
+
+This having been done, and the chairman for the next meeting
+appointed, Jimmy opened the sealed envelope containing the problem
+that Leonard, the astute head-waiter, had set for the ensuing month.
+
+Jimmy read it to himself first. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a new line
+of country. This is somewhat of a sensation. It’s called the Identity
+Problem, and runs as follows: “It is required to discover the identity
+of Leonard. The use of professional detectives, and any communication
+with Leonard himself on the subject of this problem, are forbidden.”’
+
+‘I always knew,’ said Hesseltine, with conviction, ‘that chap was no
+ordinary head-waiter.’
+
+And it appeared that several other members, who also had forgotten to
+mention it before, had always been of the same opinion.
+
+
+
+No. VI.
+
+The Identity Problem
+
+The Rev. Septimus Cunliffe took the chair at the forty-eighth meeting
+of the Problem Club. The problem which Leonard, the astute
+head-waiter, had set the members to solve during the preceding month
+was simply the discovery of his own identity; and competitors were
+debarred from communicating with Leonard himself or from employing
+detectives in its solution.
+
+Mr Cunliffe, with a pardonable enjoyment of his own excellent
+elocution, read out the terms of the problem in tones that almost made
+it a drama. And the few introductory remarks that usually fell from
+the chairman became in his case almost an address. True, the occasion
+furnished him with some excuse.
+
+‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘with this meeting the Problem Club brings to a
+close the fourth year of its existence. The idea of the club, as I
+dare say most of you are aware, originated in the imaginative brain of
+Lord Herngill, and of the original members there are still three left
+us—Sir Charles Bunford, Major Byles, and Mr Matthews. The eccentric
+nobleman who was our founder did not himself long remain a member.
+Broken in health and, as I understand, suffering from private
+disappointments, he relinquished his clubs and retired altogether from
+society. He spent the remainder of his days on his Yorkshire estate,
+shut out from the world and even denying himself the companionship of
+old friends. It was only a few months ago that his death was announced
+in the newspapers. A somewhat gloomy subject, gentlemen, but it seemed
+to me fitting that on this occasion we should recall with gratitude
+the name of our founder.
+
+‘Now for the first two years of the club’s existence the monthly
+problem was always provided by the member whose duty it would be to
+adjudicate on it. But during the second year it was found that this
+did not work well. Some of the members had not sufficient readiness of
+invention. Others did not show sufficient discretion. Our minutes of
+that period show some problems, I grieve to say, that can only be
+described as scandalous. Under these circumstances a member, Mr
+Barstairs, since dead, was deputed to find for us some able and
+trustworthy person who, for a small honorarium, would act as our
+setter of problems. At the next meeting he announced that he had
+selected Leonard, who had then just become head-waiter here.
+
+‘The selection of a head-waiter for the purpose seemed to some of
+us—certainly to myself—fantastic, more especially as Barstairs offered
+no explanation at all. But, we must admit, fantasy plays some part in
+the spirit of the club, and no formal objection was raised. Time has
+shown that Barstairs had reason in his fantasy. Leonard has given us
+every satisfaction. Whoever he may be, I think that we are agreed on
+one point—that he possesses qualities unusual in a head-waiter.
+
+‘In fact, gentlemen, the news that I am about to give you will, I am
+sure, be received with regret. I have a letter from Leonard in which
+he tells me that after eleven to-night he will cease to be in the
+service of the hotel, and will no longer be available as our
+problem-setter. He offers, if it would be any convenience to us, to
+name a successor whose ability and discretion he can guarantee
+absolutely. I may add that it is a very properly-expressed and
+respectful letter.
+
+‘The appointment of a successor may, I think, be considered later. Let
+us now proceed to the adjudication of the current competition. I
+confess that if I personally had to find out who Leonard is, I should
+not, under the conditions imposed, know how to begin. However, I have
+great confidence in the ingenuity of the ten members before me—there
+would have been eleven but for Harding Pope’s resignation.’
+
+The chairman’s confidence was misplaced. Every member had made an
+attempt to solve the problem, but every one had failed. Several of
+them had hit on the expedient of following Leonard when he left the
+hotel. The Hon. James Feldane, for example, had hit on it, and
+recounted his failure.
+
+‘I lay up in a taxi a few yards from the door of this place, where I
+could get a good view. Presently out came Leonard, and I might very
+easily have missed him, for I was expecting him to bob up from the
+basement, and he came out of the main entrance. He was well turned
+out, and looked rather less like a head-waiter than I do myself. He
+called up a taxi and got in. Off he went, and off I went after him, my
+driver having been instructed. We drove, as near as I can guess, for
+about umpty-ump hours. I know I began to wonder if my cigarettes would
+last out the trip. Then my cab slowed down to a crawl, and I looked
+cautiously from the window. Leonard’s cab had stopped in front of a
+mouldy-looking place with big gilt letters on it. He overpaid his
+cabman—I heard the words, “Thank you,” distinctly—ran up the steps,
+rang a bell, and entered. I got out.
+
+‘“Cabby,” I said, “where are we? Is this the hereafter?”
+
+‘“No, sir,” he said. “Looks like it, but it’s really Brixton.”
+
+‘The big gilt letters informed me that Leonard had entered the
+Beaulieu Temperance Hotel. I pushed the push, and the door was half
+opened to me by an Italian waiter with the darkest eyes and hands I
+ever saw. I could catch a glimpse of a small hall furnished with a
+good deal of dust and a stand for hats and coats. I spotted Leonard’s
+excellent hat and overcoat thereon. The waiter looked at me
+suspiciously. I got right on to the point at once.
+
+‘“I want,” I said, “the name and address of the gentleman who came in
+here just now, and I’ll pay a sovereign for it.”
+
+‘He seemed to understand the argument. In a minute he was back with
+the name and address and the information that the gentleman was
+stopping there for only one night. He got his sovereign. The name he
+gave was Leonard, and the address was the address of this hotel. I may
+have been more annoyed in the course of my life, but I doubt it. So I
+made the weary journey back again, had a light supper of one whisky
+and soda, and went to bed.’
+
+Mr Matthews had followed Leonard on foot to the Ritz. Mr Quillian had
+tracked him to a desperate hostelry in the far north of London. Major
+Byles had pursued him to an hotel in Wimbledon. They ascertained that
+he spent a night at each one of these three places, but they added
+nothing else to their knowledge of him.
+
+Sir Charles Bunford had been no more successful, but he had a curious
+story to tell. He had met Leonard by chance in St James’s Street one
+night at half-past eleven. There was nothing in Leonard’s dress or
+bearing that suggested anything less than complete independence. Sir
+Charles felt certain that he himself had not been recognised, turned,
+and followed him.
+
+‘He led me,’ Sir Charles recounted, ‘up through the squares to Oxford
+Street, where he turned west. Just then there came shuffling along in
+the gutter towards us a street-vendor with a tray of little toys slung
+from his shoulders. He gave me the impression of an old man. Leonard
+and he both stopped. I also stopped, making a pretence of lighting a
+cigarette. They were both in the full light of a street lamp, and I
+had a close view of them. Leonard picked up from the tray a little
+monkey of blue plush mounted on a pin. Deliberately and without a
+smile he stuck the monkey in the gutter-merchant’s battered bowler.
+Then he took out his notecase, produced a fiver, and spread it on the
+tray, and walked on. During this curious incident neither of the men
+spoke. As you may imagine, I tackled the street-vendor at once.
+
+‘“You’re in luck,” I said. “Did you know that customer?”
+
+‘He folded his fiver and slipped it into an inner pocket. He looked at
+me shrewdly, and I noticed that his eyes were young. His voice when he
+spoke was quite young. And it was the voice of an educated man too.
+
+‘“Which of us,” he said, “can say that he knows the other—or even that
+he knows himself?”
+
+‘“Come,” I said. “I think you can tell me what I want to know. And two
+fivers are better than one.”
+
+‘“That is so—to some people at some times—but not to Mr William
+Bunting, the editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_, at this time. I will
+wish you good-night, Sir Charles.”
+
+‘And he walked off briskly without a trace of the old slouch. How he
+knew my name I can’t tell you, for certainly Leonard, even if he knew
+I was following, never said a word to him. The man left me staggered.
+I rushed off again after Leonard, but I had lost him. That is all I
+have to tell, and I have given you the facts accurately as they
+happened. I was both sane and sober at the time—but if you doubt that,
+upon my word I can’t be surprised.’
+
+The failure was general. Dr Alden had interviewed the proprietor of
+the hotel, who was most courteous, but, in the doctor’s opinion, lied
+in his profession of ignorance. Mr Pusely-Smythe got hold of one of
+the other waiters who appeared perfectly willing to betray anybody on
+the most moderate terms, but, unfortunately, had no information to
+impart.
+
+‘Well,’ said the chairman, ‘I must decide that the problem has not
+been solved. The prize for it not being awarded, the prize for the
+next competition is doubled. We have now to obtain the solution of the
+problem from the wily Leonard himself, and at the same time he is
+required to show us that the problem was possible of solution by us.
+It is now twenty to eleven and presumably Leonard leaves this hotel at
+eleven; so we have not much time to spare. If you, Mr Quillian, will
+unlock the doors and ring the bell, I will tell the waiter that we
+should be glad to see Leonard for a few minutes.’
+
+But it was Leonard himself who answered the bell. He was a tall young
+man of good figure. He had not the stereotyped version of good looks,
+but his face was pleasing and full of humour and intelligence. He
+carried himself well. His dress was unsuited to the occasion, for he
+wore a well-cut lounge-suit of dark-blue cloth, and his brown, laced
+boots suggested a product of Bond Street intended for use in the
+country. There was no trace of a waiter about him. His manner was
+easy, confident without being assuming, and marked just by that touch
+of restraint that a man might show on first introduction to a number
+of his equals.
+
+‘Well, Leonard,’ said the chairman, ‘we were on the point of sending
+for you. Your problem has beaten us. Can you show us how we might have
+solved it, and provide us with the solution?’
+
+‘Certainly,’ said Leonard. ‘I’d rather expected that I should be
+wanted.’
+
+‘Good. Now sit down, won’t you? We’re all quite informal here.’
+
+‘Thanks,’ said Leonard. It seemed to be tacitly and generally accepted
+that he had become a guest of the club. Dr Alden proffered his
+cigar-case; Jimmy brought him a whisky-and-soda.
+
+‘I think I ought to begin,’ said Leonard, ‘by apologising to you for
+having given you all such a lot of trouble—more especially as it was
+quite intentional on my part.’
+
+‘Part of the game,’ said Major Byles. ‘That’s all right. No apologies
+needed.’
+
+‘Thanks very much. At any rate I can apologise for these clothes. The
+fact is that I’m going North by the midnight train from Euston, and so
+I changed. And now let me show one or two ways in which the problem
+could have been solved. Some of you followed me when I took a taxi to
+an outlying hotel, and subsequently made applications at the hotel.
+If, instead of doing this, you had hailed the taxi that I had just
+left, you would in each case have found inside it an addressed
+envelope giving you the information you required. When Mr Feldane went
+for that very long drive to Brixton, I intentionally left my hat and
+coat in the hall of the alleged hotel for a few minutes. He examined
+the waiter; if he had examined the inside of my hat he would have
+found a certain clue. Sir Charles very nearly caught me. That night I
+left the hotel much earlier than usual, and had satisfied myself that
+nobody was waiting for me outside. I was on my way to a house in
+Audley Street where I was not known as the head-waiter at this hotel,
+and my identity would probably have been discovered; and it was
+necessary I should go to that house. At the top of St James’s Street I
+found that Sir Charles was after me. But I had taken a precaution. A
+friend of mine was stationed in Oxford Street, masquerading as a
+vender of penny plush monkeys; I found him and we went through a
+little eccentric pantomime together that had been prearranged. As had
+been expected, Sir Charles stopped to make inquiries from him. And
+while that was happening I made my escape.’
+
+‘One moment,’ said Sir Charles. ‘How on earth did he know who I was?
+You never spoke to him?’
+
+‘No, I never spoke. And he did not know who you were. He did not know
+that you were Sir Charles Bunford, and does not know it now. He knew
+that he could address you as Sir Charles, and he knew that from the
+fact that I stuck the monkey in his hat. It was a prearranged code. If
+Major Byles had been following me, I should have stuck the monkey in
+my friend’s right sleeve. He would then have addressed him as Major,
+though he would not have known his name. If Mr Wildersley had been
+after me, the monkey would have gone into the left sleeve; my friend
+would have known by that sign that he was an artist, but would have
+known no more than that. Similarly, in other cases, he would always
+have appeared to have known, but would not have known really.’
+
+‘Leonard,’ said the chairman, ‘in my opinion you have shown both skill
+and discretion, and a good sporting spirit besides. I decide that your
+problem was fair. And now will you solve it for us?’
+
+‘Very good. I must give you some abbreviated family history. My
+grandfather had two sons, both of whom disappointed him, though in
+different ways. My uncle was a man of extreme avarice; my father, the
+younger of the two, was a gambler. Both my parents died before I was
+five years old, and I—the only child—passed into the charge of my
+grandfather.
+
+‘My grandfather placed me with the family of an intimate friend of
+his, who was also the senior partner in the firm of solicitors who
+acted for him, a Mr Barstairs. Barstairs had married a Frenchwoman.
+French was the language generally spoken in their house, and most of
+my early years were spent abroad. I went through a public-school and
+Cambridge without any particular disgrace or distinction. So far, my
+grandfather had kept me well supplied with money; in fact, at
+Cambridge I had not spent my allowance. But I had never seen my
+grandfather. I wrote to him four times a year, and his replies were
+always witty and entertaining. I took everything for granted in the
+way that boys do.
+
+‘On my twenty-first birthday I had a letter from my grandfather to the
+effect that as an experiment he wished me to make my own living in any
+way I liked for a period of some years. When that period was over, or
+sooner if he died before then, I was to be no longer under that
+necessity. Mr Barstairs, who had not been consulted, was indignant
+about that letter, but I did not resent it myself.
+
+‘What assets had I to offer an employer? My classical degree would
+have entitled me to teach in a school—a truly awful profession to my
+mind. I spoke two Continental languages well and a third passably. I
+had an unusual knowledge of wines and cuisine for a man of my age. (Mr
+Matthews will remember that Barstairs was an epicure.) I had seen a
+good deal of hotel life at home and abroad. I took counsel with Mr
+Hance, the proprietor of this hotel, who was known to me. After some
+training at an hotel in Paris I became the night head-waiter here,
+using my first name, Leonard, as my surname. My grandfather and Mr
+Barstairs alone were taken into my secret. It is to the latter that I
+owe the pleasure of having served a club of which I should be proud
+one day to become a member, if that were possible. I saw life from a
+novel and interesting angle. I had my mornings free for poetry, to
+which I am devoted. I was quite satisfied.
+
+‘There is little more to add. In the year that I came here my uncle
+died unmarried. Three months ago my grandfather also died, and I——’
+
+‘Pardon me,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but I have been watching your face
+carefully, and I think I see a family likeness or the trace of one.
+All that you have said would confirm it. I think you are the grandson
+of the founder of this club, and in that case you are the sixth Baron
+Herngill.’
+
+‘That is correct. I remained here for these months while some legal
+matters were completed, and to oblige Hance, for I consider that he
+did me a good turn. I leave for Enthwaite to-night. And now,
+gentlemen, since time presses, may I mention that I have a successor
+to myself to propose to you, if you have made no other arrangements?
+He would act on the same terms as I have done. I will answer for his
+ability and discretion. He is, like myself, a poet. He is also the
+editor of an obscure weekly publication called _The Pig-Keepers’
+Friend_. If you choose him I have here his first problem to deliver to
+the chairman. His name is William Bunting. With your permission I will
+retire for a few minutes while you consider this.’
+
+When he had gone out it was found that every member of the Problem
+Club had formed the same idea. On his return to the room Lord Herngill
+was informed that Mr Bunting had been appointed, and also that Lord
+Herngill had been proposed by the chairman, seconded by Sir Charles
+Bunford, and unanimously elected a member of the Problem Club.
+
+
+
+No. VII.
+
+The Shakespearean Problem
+
+The failure of the members to discover the identity of Leonard—the
+last problem that he had set them—meant that at the forty-ninth
+meeting the prize was doubled, and a cheque for two hundred and twenty
+pounds awaited the lucky winner. Leonard, formerly known as a capable
+head-waiter and an astute setter of problems, had revealed himself as
+the grandson and heir of the Lord Herngill who had founded the club,
+and had been elected to membership. He had described himself further
+as a poet. He had now travelled up from Yorkshire for the express
+purpose of attending the first meeting after his election, and the
+dinner with which the proceedings opened showed him, as had been
+expected, a charming, accomplished, and quite amusing companion.
+
+Young Hesseltine and the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe were, respectively,
+chairman and secretary for the evening. The chairman, equipped with a
+bound copy of Shakespeare, and certain other forms of refreshment,
+read out the terms of the competition. They were longer than usual,
+and ran as follows:—
+
+‘Members are required, in the course of conversation, to make
+undetected quotations from Shakespeare, and to detect and challenge
+the quotations which are made by other members.
+
+‘The score is two for making an undetected quotation, and one for
+detecting and challenging a quotation made by another. The highest
+score wins. If any member challenges as a quotation from Shakespeare
+words which are not a quotation from that author, he will have one
+deducted from his score. Any member with a score of minus three is out
+of the game.
+
+‘The method of challenging will be by raising one hand, when the
+chairman will temporarily arrest proceedings and investigate. Where
+several members raise their hands simultaneously, all will score the
+detection, or be penalised for the failure, as the case may be.
+Otherwise, only the first hand up can score or be penalised.
+
+‘A quotation must consist of more than four words, or it will not rank
+as a quotation. The words must be given in their correct order, but
+otherwise any attempt may be made to disguise the quotation. Any
+member who has made an undetected quotation should notify it to the
+chairman at the earliest opportunity, while it is still fresh in the
+memory.
+
+‘Detection, to be valid, should be made immediately—say, within twenty
+seconds of the utterance of the quotation.
+
+‘The chairman will stop the competition when in his opinion all
+members have had a fair and full chance of speaking, and on all
+disputed points his ruling is absolute.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said the chairman, when he had read out the above, ‘our new
+problem-setter, the mysterious editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_,
+seems to be rather a lengthy beggar. More like a round game than a
+problem, to my mind. I can imagine literary circles playing it on
+winter evenings. However, I think we’ve most of us got the hang of it.
+There’s double the usual amount of boodle in the jack-pot, but all the
+same I’m not sorry to be debarred from competing. I had a good deal of
+Shakespeare boosted into me by schoolmasters when I was a boy, but I
+fear that it ain’t stuck to me. Well, it’s all up to the high-brows
+to-night. And I’ll call on our old friend Leonard, who’s our new
+member, Lord Herngill, to start the ball rolling, and our padre to
+keep the score as directed.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Leonard, ‘I can’t say that I am a stranger here, but I am
+certainly a new member, and very glad to be. Now, I told you that I
+was a poet, but a writer of poetry is not necessarily a reader of
+poetry. I can’t say whether he ought to be or not.’ He paused to
+relight a cigarette. ‘To be candid——’
+
+‘I challenge,’ said Mr Cunliffe, with uplifted hand. ‘The quotation
+is, “To be or not to be,” rather cunningly broken up.’
+
+‘Admitted,’ said Leonard.
+
+‘Then,’ said the chairman, ‘the secretary will score one to himself.’
+
+‘At the same time,’ said Leonard, ‘I should like him to score two to
+me. The words, “I am a stranger here,” are a quotation from _King
+Richard II._, Act 2, Scene iii. Northumberland speaks them. And the
+quotation was not recognised.’
+
+This was verified and found correct and the score allowed. The
+chairman turned to the Hon. James Feldane, who was sitting—or, to be
+accurate, reclining—in the chair next to Leonard. ‘Go ahead, Jimmy,’
+he said.
+
+‘Very well,’ said Jimmy wearily. ‘The—er—the quality of mercy——’
+
+Five hands went into the air together.
+
+‘Jimmy,’ said the chairman, ‘it looks as if you were pretty
+considerably challenged—by five simultaneously. You, Major Byles,
+being one of them, will tell us why.’
+
+‘Why?’ exclaimed the Major. ‘Because it’s one of the best-known
+quotations in Shakespeare. I won’t swear which play it comes from,
+but everybody knows it. Let’s see, how does it go? “The quality
+of mercy is not strained, but droppeth like the thingamy of the
+something-or-other.”’
+
+‘Any defence, Jimmy?’ asked the chairman.
+
+‘Somewhat,’ said Jimmy. ‘I said, “The quality of mercy.” I admit it. I
+glory in it. But that’s only four words, and it’s laid down that four
+words do not make a quotation.’
+
+‘That is so. I fear that the Major, Dr Alden, our only K.C., and our
+two artist-members must all have a minus one recorded against them.’
+
+‘What I was going to have said when they interrupted me was that the
+quality of mercy differed in some material respects from coffee that
+has been made with a percolator. Same thought as Shakey’s, but a
+different mode of expression. Five of you have now lost a life through
+being premature. You need to be careful. A score of minus three puts
+you outside of any chance of two hundred and twenty of the very best.
+And I’m dangerous to-night—I’m out for blood. The brindled cat winds
+slowly o’er the lea—anybody like to challenge that?’
+
+Wildersley said it would make a good title for an Academy picture, but
+nobody asserted that it was Shakespeare—not even Jimmy.
+
+‘You’re an unenterprising lot,’ said Jimmy disdainfully. ‘But I’ll
+give you one more chance. “Satiate at length, and heightened as with
+wine.” That’s more than four words. Any challengers?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Sir Charles, holding up his hand. ‘I don’t know for
+certain, but it’s got the flavour of the period in it. Anyway, I’d
+sooner lose one life than let you score a triumphant two for it.’
+
+‘Then you’ll lose the life. It’s a quotation all right, but it happens
+to be a little bit that I cut out of the best end of _Paradise Lost_,
+by J. Milton, Esquire.’ And Jimmy leant back in his chair satisfied.
+He had scored nothing for himself, but he had done something to spoil
+the chances of six other men.
+
+The chairman turned to Sir Charles. ‘Don’t you think that Jimmy’s an
+irreverent young blackguard?’ he asked.
+
+‘Well,’ said Sir Charles, with an air of quiet dignity. ‘Jimmy is
+young and I am old. As we progress on life’s journey, we old men cease
+to expect to find universal agreement with our views. We know that our
+opinions are our own, but cannot be all the world’s.’ He paused and
+sighed. ‘A stage or two farther on, and Jimmy may come to think, as I
+do now, that——’ And here suddenly Sir Charles broke off and chuckled.
+‘Well, I’m blest!’ he said. ‘I never expected to do it. I knew this
+wasn’t a little nest of Shakespeareans, but I did think that you’d
+spot the best-known line in Shakespeare.’
+
+That air of pathetic dignity had merely been a bit of acting, but the
+acting had been so good that it had distracted the attention from the
+words. Otherwise members must have found in Sir Charles’s remarks the
+well-worn tag that ‘All the world’s a stage.’ It scored two for Sir
+Charles, thus putting him on the way to a win, at any rate.
+
+A few minutes later another well-known quotation very nearly came
+through unscathed. Somebody, speaking of Leonard, had said, ‘Leonard,
+or Lord Herngill, whichever he prefers to be called.’
+
+Leonard smilingly said that a rose by any other name would smell as
+sweet. He admitted afterwards that he had not had the slightest
+intention of quoting Shakespeare. He had merely uttered a platitude
+because it happened to be apt, though as soon as he said it he
+recognised his own quotation. Unfortunately for him, the Rev. Septimus
+Cunliffe had also recognised it, and by challenging it added one to a
+score that was growing slowly but surely. He attempted no quotation
+himself, and never challenged unless he was sure. To put it plainly,
+he played for safety.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Jimmy Feldane plaintively, commenting on this incident,
+‘one of the worst points about Mr W. Shakespeare is that he made such
+a lot of proverbs. I don’t want to brag, but I suppose I’ve read as
+little as most people, and I expect that even I don’t keep clear of
+Shakespearean quotations altogether. I’m not aiming at him, but every
+now and then he flies into it, so to speak.’
+
+The supercilious Mr Quillian had provided himself with a stock of
+quotations from Elizabethan dramatists other than Shakespeare, and did
+deadly work with them. They were challenged, and brought the penalty
+on the challengers. And having thus inspired a dread of traps, he
+introduced three quotations which really were from Shakespeare, and
+two of them got through undetected. Pusely-Smythe, who generally
+welcomed a chance of a friendly duel with Quillian remained silent,
+watching him with sardonic amusement.
+
+The game became very strenuous. There was the closest attention in
+order to spot any veritable quotation. Every strategic dodge that had
+been thought of during the previous month was brought into action, to
+induce a challenge that would be penalised, or to get a quotation
+through undetected. Several members reached minus three, and were
+ruled out.
+
+‘This game is too much for me,’ said Mr Matthews, on losing his third
+life. ‘It’s too subtle. The American game of draw-poker, with three
+jokers in the pack and one of the players a crook, is simple,
+transparent, and childlike compared to it. However, one of the joys of
+being out of it is that I can get myself that little drink that I have
+long needed.’ And he made his way to the side-table.
+
+‘Mr Chairman,’ said Sir Charles, ‘I think a ten-minutes’ interval
+would be welcome. It’s wearing work to keep on thinking what one is
+saying.’
+
+His suggestion was warmly supported and accepted by the chairman. Some
+members followed the comfortable example of Mr Matthews. Some chuckled
+over the clever caricatures, drawn on the back of bridge-markers, with
+which Wildersley had been occupying his enforced leisure; an excess of
+zeal over discretion had put him out of the game at an early stage.
+All consulted the secretary’s score-sheet. Quillian was leading with a
+score of nine. The secretary and Sir Charles were each at eight. Major
+Byles was three, and Pusely-Smythe one. Jimmy Feldane was minus one,
+and Lord Herngill—who had at one time reached the noble score of
+four—had by reckless challenging brought himself to the perilous
+position of minus two.
+
+‘Can’t make it out,’ said Mr Matthews to him. ‘You used to set all our
+problems. You ought to be a flyer at this kind of a game.’
+
+‘It’s an easy job to set problems,’ said Leonard, ‘and to set them so
+that you can solve them, but it’s a different thing altogether to
+solve the problems that somebody else has set.’
+
+‘Oh, well, it’s an open thing still. Quillian’s just leading, but I
+don’t believe he’ll pull it off. Shan’t be surprised if old Bunford is
+two hundred and twenty the richer before the evening’s out.’
+
+Proceedings were now resumed. ‘Come, now, Pusely-Smythe,’ said the
+chairman, ‘we’ve not heard much from you to-night.’
+
+‘Afraid of being challenged?’ suggested Quillian.
+
+‘As a rule,’ said Pusely-Smythe angrily, ‘I’m told that I am much too
+venturous. However, my learned friend, if you want to talk, go on and
+I will wait for you. The chairman called on me to speak, not you, and
+as a matter of fact, I had a thing to say. But let it go—it may make
+trouble later, and then you’ll remember I told you what would come of
+this. Your blessed challenges, indeed! You may think you can do
+everything, but I know you can do very little.’
+
+Quillian stared at him aghast and perplexed.
+
+‘Really,’ he said, ‘I don’t understand this outburst. I had not the
+slightest intention——’
+
+But here he was interrupted by Pusely-Smythe’s laughter. ‘All right,
+old man,’ said Pusely-Smythe cheerily. ‘Don’t worry. It was all spoof
+and part of the game. Thanks to you, I’ve just made five undetected
+quotations from the work of the bard. You’re my benefactor. In fact,
+as the Orientals say, you are my father and my mother, and I am the
+son of a dog.’
+
+‘Five?’ said the chairman. ‘It hardly seems possible.’
+
+But Pusely-Smythe made out his list and it was found to be quite
+correct. The five quotations were as follows:—
+
+‘I am much too venturous,’ _King Henry VIII._, Act 1, Scene ii.
+
+‘And I will wait for you,’ _Julius Cæsar_, Act 1, Scene ii.
+
+‘I had a thing to say—but let it go,’ _King John_, Act 3, Scene iii.
+
+‘I told you what would come of this,’ _The Winter’s Tale_, Act 4,
+Scene iii.
+
+‘I know you can do very little,’ _Coriolanus_, Act 2, Scene i.
+
+‘It’s a great _coup_,’ said the chairman. ‘It puts you right at the
+head of the list. Closing time is imminent, gentlemen. So if you have
+anything else to say, get on with it.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Quillian, ‘somebody ought to have spotted him. It’s
+really more our carelessness than his cleverness. But I should imagine
+that’s the last undetected quotation he will be able to get through
+to-night. You’re a watched man now.’
+
+‘By Jove, yes,’ said the Major.
+
+‘Since you talk like that,’ said Pusely-Smythe, smiling. ‘I will make
+another quotation. By the way, how long will you give me? I should
+have asked you that before, of course.’
+
+‘Five minutes,’ said the Major. ‘And then perhaps we might close the
+competition, if the chairman sees fit.’
+
+A general agreement was reached on this point, and Pusely-Smythe was
+enjoined by the chairman to get on with it.
+
+‘I’ve finished, thanks,’ said Pusely-Smythe. ‘The words, “I should
+have asked you that before,” are a quotation from a play called _Romeo
+and Juliet_. It’s the second scene of the first act—Romeo speaking.’
+
+The quotation was verified, and advanced Pusely-Smythe’s score to
+thirteen—a lucky number for once—thus leaving him an easy winner.
+
+‘And,’ said young Hesseltine, the chairman, as he handed him the
+cheque, ‘considering the way you must have sweated through tons and
+tons of absolute Shakespeare during the month, in order to pick out
+the little bits that didn’t look like quotations, I’m not sure that
+you haven’t earned about five per cent. of it.’
+
+The chairman now opened the sealed envelope containing the problem for
+the next month. In this the talented editor of _The Pig-Keepers’
+Friend_ had been quite brief. It was entitled ‘The Impersonation
+Problem,’ and the terms of it were as follows:—
+
+‘It is required to be mistaken for six different people in the course
+of one hour.’
+
+‘He don’t use any unnecessary words about it,’ said Mr Matthews.
+
+But it may be remembered that the editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_
+was also a poet—and real poets never use unnecessary words.
+
+
+
+No. VIII.
+
+The Impersonation Problem
+
+The terms of the Impersonation Problem, which came up for adjudication
+at the fiftieth meeting of the club, were as follows:—
+
+‘It is required to be mistaken for six different people in the course
+of one hour.’
+
+Mr Wildersley, A.R.A.—large, cheerful, and childlike—took the chair,
+and observed that it was just as well for other members that the
+dignified position of adjudicator prevented him from competing, as
+otherwise he would have been a certain winner. It was a claim that the
+chairman for the evening very frequently made, but Wildersley was not
+very serious about it.
+
+‘My profession,’ he said, ‘would have given me a start of about eighty
+yards in the hundred. I’m skilled in the rapid use of oil-paints.
+Within the prescribed limit of one hour I could have painted myself to
+look like a rabbit, or a tomato, or a man, or a hole in the ground, or
+any other object of the seashore, so as absolutely to defy detection.
+Not one of you duffers would have had a chance.’
+
+‘Pardon the interruption,’ said Mr Quillian, K.C., ‘but the terms of
+the problem require us to be mistaken for six different people. May I
+ask the chairman if he would consider a rabbit and a tomato as being
+people for the purposes of this problem?’
+
+‘The time of the chairman,’ said Wildersley, severely, ‘is not to be
+wasted on purely hypothetical cases. If, when his turn comes, Mr
+Quillian claims to have been mistaken for a rabbit, I shall be ready
+both to believe it and to adjudicate upon it. And now, gentlemen, we
+will have the story of your dismal failures. Hesseltine here is acting
+as secretary to-night, and he may as well get his talking done first,
+so that he can give his undivided attention to his duties.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Hesseltine, ‘Feldane and I went into partnership this
+time, as the rules permit. We don’t claim to have scored the full six,
+but we had a lovely time while it lasted. Jimmy had better tell you
+about it, as he played the lead.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Jimmy, with a weary smile, ‘it was quite on the amusing
+side. Involved a lot of work though—thinking it all out and getting
+together the properties for the drama. If we scooped fifty-five pounds
+each over it we shouldn’t be overpaid, but just as we were doing
+nicely the bottom fell out of it. However, I’ll tell you.’
+
+The incidents which Jimmy related were as follows: Early on a fine
+morning he and Hesseltine were conveyed by a taxi-cab to a point,
+previously selected, on a road on the outskirts of a south-western
+suburb. Here they unloaded their miscellaneous collection of
+properties and got to work. The driver took the cab off to a
+public-house in the vicinity, and there awaited further orders.
+
+Hesseltine was disguised as a labourer. Jimmy, who was to act as his
+boss, was got up as, to use his own description, ‘a sort of
+semi-scientific clerky person, clad in a seedy suit, a pince-nez, and
+an air of educated wisdom.’ They began by enclosing a portion of the
+roadway with stakes and ropes, fixing red flags at the corners of the
+square. Then Hesseltine entered the enclosure and began vigorously to
+dig a hole in the road with pick and spade. It was still early, and
+there were few people about. So Hesseltine’s boss condescended to lend
+a hand with the digging. Afterwards Feldane contented himself with
+strolling round the hole with a voltmeter, borrowed from the taxi-cab,
+in one hand, a two-foot rule sticking out of his breast-pocket, and a
+general air of importance.
+
+When the hole was about three feet deep a sleepy policeman paused on
+his way past.
+
+‘Something wrong with the drains?’ he asked.
+
+‘Hope not,’ said Feldane cheerfully. ‘But that’s what we’re going to
+find out. We’re just putting in the smoke-test on this section.’
+
+‘I see,’ said the policeman. ‘You ain’t from Mackworth’s, are you?’
+
+‘Mackworth’s? Oh, no. We’re from Matthews and Byles, the sanitary
+engineers at Vauxhall. Dare say you know the name.’
+
+The policeman said he believed he’d heard it, and passed on. The game
+had now definitely begun, and there was only one hour to play it in
+and no time to be lost. A small car was approaching with a lady
+driving. Feldane ran into the road, held up his hand, and stopped it.
+
+‘Sorry, madam,’ he said to the lady, ‘but would you mind waiting just
+for a few seconds? I’m sure you’ll understand. We’ve got an Erichsen’s
+galvanometrical balance working in that hole, and the least vibration
+would spoil the reading. We shan’t be a minute.’
+
+‘Certainly,’ said the lady. ‘I know something of these delicate
+instruments. What are you using it for?’
+
+‘We’re from the Post Office Electrical Survey. There’s trouble with
+the telegraph wires here that they can’t locate. Of course if iron
+pyrites has been used in the construction of the road, that would
+account for it. We’re looking into it. Bill,’ he called to Hesseltine,
+‘what do you make it?’
+
+Hesseltine examined the bottom of the hole. ‘Steady at two point
+five,’ he called back.
+
+‘Good. Let this car past, and then set a foot further in. Thank you
+very much, madam.’
+
+The unsuspecting lady drove on. Hesseltine sat down in the hole and
+laughed. Jimmy glanced at his watch. ‘That’s two in under ten
+minutes,’ he said. ‘If we can keep it up at anything like this rate,
+we ought to do.’
+
+But for some time after this passers-by proved curious but
+unenterprising. They stared with the keenest interest at the
+proceedings, but did not put in any inquiry. Then an elderly tramp
+paused on his way into the town.
+
+‘Water-main?’ he suggested.
+
+‘Ay,’ said Jimmy.
+
+‘All that work for a little water! Sooner you than me.’
+
+Almost immediately afterwards a rather fussy and important little man
+demanded to know what it was all about.
+
+‘Gas,’ said Jimmy laconically.
+
+‘There’s no gas-main in this road,’ snapped the little man.
+
+‘No,’ said Jimmy. ‘Nor likely to be until we’ve took the level for the
+pipes. Pass along, please.’
+
+The little man said that it seemed hopeless to expect a civil answer
+to a civil question nowadays, but he passed along. Jimmy again
+consulted his watch.
+
+‘Four in half an hour,’ he observed. ‘We can hardly miss it now.’
+
+But fate was already on its way in the shape of a young,
+newly-appointed, eager and suspicious policeman. He watched Jimmy and
+Hesseltine for a minute or so in silence. Jimmy made an entry in a
+pocket-book.
+
+‘All right, Bill,’ said Jimmy to Hesseltine. ‘You can fill in again
+now.’
+
+‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asked the policeman.
+
+‘Rubberite Road Construction,’ said Jimmy. ‘They’re putting down an
+experimental section here, and this is just the preliminary testing.’
+
+‘Don’t they put no notice-board up with the name of the firm on?’
+
+‘They will, of course, as soon as the actual work begins. I have their
+card.’ This printed card had been one of Jimmy’s properties. The
+policeman slipped it into his pocket.
+
+‘I’ve no doubt it’s all right,’ said the policeman, ‘but I’ll just
+show this card to make sure.’
+
+‘Certainly,’ said Jimmy; ‘that’s the thing to do. You’ll find they
+know all about it up at the station.’
+
+The game was up. As soon as the policeman was round the corner Jimmy
+dashed off to fetch the taxi while Hesseltine completed the work of
+filling in the hole and getting their various properties together.
+They had at least the satisfaction of getting clear away before the
+policeman returned.
+
+The chairman, when he had heard the story, said that if everybody had
+their rights it was probable that two of the younger members of the
+Problem Club would now be in prison, but he would allow them a score
+of five all the same. The fifth score might seem a little doubtful,
+but the young policeman has said that he believed it was all right,
+and if he had not would probably have taken stronger measures. The
+chairman also refused to admit Quillian’s objection that the
+conspirators had been mistaken for imaginary people. People might be
+real or imaginary, and the subtle editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_
+had not indicated that either meaning was excluded. A further protest
+by Major Byles and Mr Matthews against the scandalous use that had
+been made of their names for the firm of sanitary engineers was not
+taken seriously.
+
+But the Major may have been embittered by the completeness of his own
+failure. With the help of a gray wig and beard and some shabby
+clothes, he had intended to call at six different back-doors and to
+represent in succession six different people—a beggar, a
+fortune-teller, a vendor of cheap jewellery, and so forth. But the
+first back-door at which he called was his own, and there he was
+immediately recognised by a house-dog and by his own kitchen-maid. His
+subsequent explanation that he had merely been doing it for a bet had
+not been well received. He did not give details, but it was gathered
+that Mrs Byles had had a good deal to say on the subject.
+
+Lord Herngill had done very little better. He had attempted no
+disguise at all. His idea had been, in the course of travel on the
+Bakerloo Tube railway, to get into conversation with six different
+people and to tell six plausible but erroneous stories about himself.
+His statement that he personally had driven the first train that had
+passed under the Thames in that tube, being in fact the consulting
+engineer of the company, was received by an old lady with great
+interest and not the slightest suspicion. He then changed into another
+carriage and found an opportunity to tell a young curate that though
+he lived within ten miles of London he had never been there in his
+life before. He was only there then because he had to see property
+that he had inherited at Swiss Cottage. And could the curate tell him
+at all where Swiss Cottage was?
+
+That question was his undoing. ‘I can not only tell you,’ said the
+smiling curate, ‘but, as it happens, I am going there myself, and it
+will give me much pleasure to have your company.’
+
+And by the time that he had got rid of that curate it was hopeless to
+attempt his remaining impersonations within the prescribed time. It
+was generally felt that in a matter of impersonation Lord Herngill, on
+his previous character, should have done better.
+
+Mr Quillian had bestowed six shillings on six different
+crossing-sweepers. Five of them had said, ‘Thank you, m’lord,’ and the
+other had said, ‘Thank you, Captain.’ On this he claimed to have won,
+as it was obvious that all five crossing-sweepers could not have
+mistaken him for the same peer. It was pointed out to him by the
+chairman that there was not the slightest evidence that any one of
+those crossing-sweepers had made any mistake at all.
+
+For once Pusely-Smythe had failed to compete, and said that he had
+been too busy. It was suggested that his time had been taken up with
+spending his winnings from the previous month. Mr Matthews also had
+taken no part in the competition. The reason he gave was simple
+cowardice; the ghastly breakdown of his attempt to impersonate an old
+lady for the purposes of the Kiss Problem had spoiled his nerve for
+anything of the kind in the future.
+
+The disgraceful adventure of Feldane and Hesseltine seemed likely to
+be the nearest approach to the problem-setter’s requirements, until
+Sir Charles Bunford was called on for his experiences. Sir Charles
+claimed to have won.
+
+‘I came to the conclusion,’ said Sir Charles, ‘that the man who asks
+for something or tries to sell something is likely to create an
+atmosphere of suspicion. On the other hand the man who gives
+something, even to a complete stranger, will have his explanatory
+story accepted without question. The fact that he stands to lose by
+the transaction is accepted as evidence of his genuineness.
+
+‘With this conviction, and with such disguise as I thought advisable,
+I called at various houses all in one row in the Willesden
+neighbourhood. I was accompanied by a covered handcart, propelled by a
+boy hired for the purpose. Inside the handcart were the gifts that I
+had prepared for the occupants of the houses. Taking from the handcart
+a fruit-cake in a paper bag, I rang at the first house and requested
+the dirty little girl who opened it to fetch her dear mamma. Mamma
+appeared, wiping her hands on her apron, and looking displeased with
+life in general and me in particular.
+
+‘“Good-morning, lady,” I said. “I am instructed by my employers to ask
+you if you will do them the favour of accepting as a present this
+fruit-cake of their manufacture. They are shortly opening a branch in
+this neighbourhood and are taking this method of making ladies
+acquainted with the quality of their goods. It is, in fact, an
+advertisement.” After assuring herself again that there was nothing to
+pay, and that the consumption of the cake would not bind her to deal
+with my firm—Messrs Butterstone and Co.—in future, she consented to
+accept the cake, and even to say that it seemed a straight way of
+doing business. She inquired where the new shop would be, which I told
+her, and what the price of a similar cake would be if she ever wanted
+to buy one. I put it at half what I had paid for it, and she said it
+was a pleasant morning. Never for one moment did she doubt that I was
+what I had represented myself to be.
+
+[Illustration: A smiling gentleman, smartly dressed in a white summer
+suit with a hat and holding a loaf-sized package wrapped in paper,
+talks to a taciturn housewife as she wipes her hands on her apron. A
+young girl stands nearby and watches them both. Caption:
+‘“Good-morning, lady,” I said. “I am instructed by my employers.”’]
+
+‘At the next house with equal success I presented half a pound of
+butter as a sample of the products of the Farm Creameries Company, and
+a similar story. The third house got a tablet of scented soap from an
+enterprising chemist who was just starting in business in the
+neighbourhood. At the next three houses I distributed as free
+advertising samples a pound of sausages, a box of cigarettes, and a
+small bottle of whisky. It took longer than I had expected, because
+the ladies had such a lot of questions to ask about the new shops that
+were to be opened, but I finished six minutes under the hour. Of
+course, I could have carried all the goods round in a basket, but the
+handcart looked more like a house-to-house distribution on a large
+scale.’
+
+The decision was not given in his favour until after Quillian had
+raised an objection. He maintained that in each case Sir Charles had
+been mistaken for the same thing—to wit, the representative or agent
+in advance of a business firm. But the chairman’s decision that Sir
+Charles had been mistaken for six different representatives of six
+different firms was generally approved. And as no other member had a
+claim to make the cheque was handed to him.
+
+The chairman then opened the sealed envelope containing the problem on
+which their ingenuity was next to be expended. It was entitled ‘The
+Alibi Problem,’ and the terms of it were as follows:—
+
+‘It is impossible for a man to be in two places at once. But it is
+required so to arrange matters that bona-fide evidence would be
+procurable that at a certain hour of a certain day or night you were
+in two places at once, the two places to be not less than one hundred
+miles from each other.’
+
+‘Not uninteresting,’ said the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe, ‘but it leaves a
+good deal to the discretion of the chairman. He will have to decide
+which of us could produce the best evidence that the impossible had
+been accomplished. By the way, who is the next chairman?’
+
+‘Should have been Harding Pope,’ said Wildersley. ‘But as he’s gone,
+it will be the member elected in his place—our old friend Leonard,
+Lord Herngill.’
+
+‘My poor abilities are at your service,’ said Lord Herngill, laughing,
+‘at London’s lowest prices always.’
+
+
+
+No. IX.
+
+The Alibi Problem
+
+Lord Herngill read out the demand made by the editor of _The
+Pig-Keepers’ Friend_ on the ingenuity of the members of the Problem
+Club. Members were required to produce evidence, that could be given
+in good faith, that at a certain hour, day or night, they had been in
+two places at once, the two places not being less than one hundred
+miles apart.
+
+Lord Herngill said that he felt anxious and depressed. His manner and
+appearance, it may be added, hardly bore out the statement. He
+assigned his depression to two reasons. Firstly, other chairmen had
+had the simple task of adjudicating on a point of fact. He—a new
+member, a novice, a mere babe, as you might say—was required to
+undertake far more delicate and difficult work, and to base his
+decision on an estimate of evidence. Secondly, the secretary for the
+evening was Mr Wildersley. On the last occasion that Wildersley had
+acted as secretary he had adorned the minute-book with drawings of the
+chairman which were undoubtedly amusing and possessed of artistic
+merit, but at the same time were calculated to bring that chairman
+into ridicule and contempt.
+
+‘So you see, gentlemen,’ Lord Herngill continued, ‘that this is
+nervous work for me. However, I will make the plunge. Towards the end
+of dinner a telegram was handed to Mr Feldane over which I noticed him
+to be chuckling. May I inquire if it had any bearing on the problem
+before us?’
+
+‘Well, it had,’ Jimmy admitted. ‘Brainy work to have guessed it. But
+I’m not on in this act—I’m resting. The wire really concerns
+Hesseltine’s claim.’
+
+‘You two generally hunt in couples. Perhaps Mr Hesseltine will let you
+put his case for him.’
+
+‘Anything that pleases you and saves me trouble,’ said Hesseltine
+generously. ‘I can always correct Jimmy if he makes an ass of
+himself.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Jimmy, ‘we can see for ourselves that Hesseltine is here
+to-night. I don’t want to dwell on his misfortunes, but he looks much
+as usual. Talks in the same silly way too. But that telegram is his
+evidence that he is really in Liverpool. It is signed with his name
+and was handed in at a Liverpool office. I’ll read it. “So sorry to be
+unable to be with you to-night, but have promised to remain here to
+act as judge at local baby-show.” Well, it isn’t for me to say
+anything, though I could.’
+
+‘The evidence that Mr Hesseltine is here,’ said the chairman, ‘is
+good. The evidence that he is in Liverpool is less good. A telegram is
+not necessarily despatched by the man whose name is signed to it.
+Further, it seems to me improbable that a young bachelor would have
+been selected for the high office which Mr Hesseltine claims to have
+fulfilled. I think we shall do better than that. I will ask Mr
+Pusely-Smythe how far he has succeeded in being in two places at
+once.’
+
+‘It is easier to be in one place at twice,’ said Pusely-Smythe. ‘But I
+have done what I could, considering how unversed I am in the arts of
+deception.’ The applause which greeted this statement was possibly of
+an ironical character. ‘On the morning of Tuesday last,’ Pusely-Smythe
+continued, ‘I was at the Rectory, Meldon Bois, where I had been
+spending the week-end. The village of Meldon Bois is one hundred and
+eight miles from London. It had been my intention to leave Meldon Bois
+by the 10.5 a.m. for London. I had been pressed to remain for one more
+night, as there was to be a performance of a pastoral play by
+distinguished amateurs in the grounds of the Rectory on Tuesday
+afternoon, and it would be a pity for me to miss it. I will not
+conceal it from you, sir, that the said pastoral play constituted the
+principal reason for my departure.
+
+‘You have grasped these facts? Very good. Now, on the morning of
+Tuesday, by the first post, I received a letter from my one and only
+aunt, who resides in London, to say that as I was coming up to town
+that morning she hoped I would lunch with her in Grosvenor Street and
+accompany her afterwards to hear a lecture to be given by some eminent
+idiot on “The Future of Eugenics.” My aunt is one of the most
+strong-minded and wearisome women in existence. I had been reluctant
+to witness the amateur performance in the Rectory grounds, and I
+contemplated the idea of listening to a lecture on “The Future of
+Eugenics” with horror and loathing. That was the situation. I had to
+miss two birds with one stone.
+
+‘My first step was to telegraph to my one and only aunt as follows:
+“Regret detained here. Am writing.” On the following morning she
+received a letter from me which I am able to produce in its envelope.
+The letter is in my own handwriting on paper stamped with the Rectory
+address. The letter is dated Tuesday evening, and the post-mark on the
+envelope shows that it was posted at Meldon Bois on that day. Now that
+letter not only states that I had remained so as not to miss the
+pastoral amateurs, but also makes several statements as to their
+performance, every one of which can be proved to be absolutely
+accurate. These statements are that Miss Sykes looked charming in some
+pale lilac-coloured contraption, that the comedian over-acted, that
+the weather was not entirely favourable, that some of the players
+seemed to find a difficulty in making themselves audible, that quite a
+nice sum was realised for the Cottage Hospital, and that the Rector in
+proposing a vote of thanks to the players said that where all were so
+good it would be invidious to differentiate. I have no doubt that on
+the strength of that letter and the details it contains, my aunt would
+give evidence in good faith that to her knowledge I must have been at
+Meldon Bois on Tuesday afternoon. Notwithstanding this, I left Meldon
+Bois on Tuesday morning by the train originally contemplated, and on
+Tuesday afternoon I was playing bridge at my club in London, as
+various members of the club who met me there would attest.’
+
+‘On the face of it,’ said the chairman, ‘it looks like rather a good
+case. I presume that you wrote the letter to your aunt before leaving
+by train in the morning, and gave it to a servant with instructions to
+post it after the performance.’
+
+‘Precisely so.’
+
+‘But how did you manage to give an accurate account of the performance
+at which you were really not present?’
+
+‘Well, Miss Sykes was staying at the Rectory and had told me what
+dress she would wear. The rest was intelligent anticipation. The glass
+was low, and, besides, the weather is always unfavourable for pastoral
+plays, and some of the players always fail to make their voices carry
+in the open. Given village amateurs, over-acting by the comedian is as
+certain as death. To put the receipts as a nice sum was quite safe. It
+was riskier to quote the Rector’s actual words, but he’s a kindly and
+tactful man with a circumscribed mind, so I thought I might chance it,
+and it came off.’
+
+The next few members on whom the chairman called produced nothing of
+interest. Some, like Hesseltine, had thought of the bogus telegram.
+Some, like Feldane, were resting. Dr Alden had tried an idea of his
+own, and expressed the hope that the chairman would think better of it
+than he did himself.
+
+Early one morning he had entered a tobacconist’s shop where he was not
+known and investigated the man’s stock of cigars. He found it
+difficult to make up his mind as to which of three different brands
+would suit him best. He took away with him a specimen of each, and
+said that he would try them after luncheon and let the tobacconist
+know. At three that afternoon Dr Alden’s man called at the
+tobacconist’s with a note from the doctor saying that the trial had
+been made and naming the brand selected. Five hundred of this brand
+were ordered, and a cheque for the exact sum was enclosed in payment.
+The tobacconist was to deliver the goods to the bearer of the note, as
+the doctor was leaving for the country at four and wished to take some
+of the cigars with him. This was done, and probably the tobacconist
+would have been willing to swear in consequence that Dr Alden was in
+London until four that day. As a matter of fact, the doctor had left
+for the North by express shortly after ten that morning.
+
+‘Yes,’ said the chairman, ‘you convinced that tobacconist that you
+were in London when you were not, just as Pusely-Smythe convinced his
+aunt that he was not in London when he was. In each case it is the
+evidence of one person only. Have you done any better, Mr Wildersley?’
+
+‘Better?’ said Wildersley cheerfully. ‘I should rather think I have. I
+should have made out the club cheque for the prize to my own order
+already but for the fact that I prefer the formal routine. Cast your
+chairmaniacal eye over this sketch-book. It is filled with pencil
+drawings made from time to time, if not oftener, by the eminent
+Wildersley. The last few pages were made at the political meeting at
+Glasgow last week. They are dated in my own hand. There are notes as
+to the colour also in my hand. They are in my sketch-book. If they are
+not proof positive that I was at that meeting, then what are they? All
+the same I was in London while that meeting was being held, and can
+produce countless witnesses who saw me and spoke to me.’
+
+The chairman looked carefully at the drawings. ‘Not done from
+photographs, I suppose?’
+
+‘No, m’lord,’ said Wildersley. ‘All genuine hand-work and done on the
+spot.’
+
+Lord Herngill compared them with previous drawings in the book. ‘These
+look to me,’ he said, ‘as if they were done by somebody who was trying
+to imitate your technique but had not quite got it.’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Wildersley, ‘that finishes us. You have it. The other
+artist member and I went into collaboration in this enterprise. Austin
+went to Glasgow, and made the sketches in the book with what he was
+pleased to call an imitation of the worst of the Wildersleian
+mannerisms. I remained in London giving my famous impersonation of
+myself. I added the date and manuscript notes afterwards. Still, if
+this book fell into the hands of somebody who had not the full use of
+his eyes—and very few people have—he might use it as evidence in good
+faith that I was at Glasgow at that date.’
+
+‘Undoubtedly. I shall not forget your claim. Meanwhile, is there any
+other?’
+
+‘Yes,’ said Sir Charles Bunford placidly, ‘I think my claim to have
+established an alibi is stronger than any you have heard yet.
+Birmingham is more than a hundred miles from London. A certain butler
+in Birmingham would swear that he saw me and spoke to me on a certain
+afternoon. A photographer in Birmingham would swear that he
+photographed me on that same afternoon, and would be able to produce
+the negative. Yet during the whole of that afternoon I was in London,
+as the evidence of many of my friends would show. And all the evidence
+would be given in good faith.’
+
+‘And how was this miracle accomplished?’ the chairman asked.
+
+‘I’ll tell you the story as briefly as I can. I went to stay for a
+fortnight with an old friend of mine, a bachelor named Fraser, who has
+a house outside Birmingham. He is a keen ornithologist. He employs in
+the preparation of specimens and so on a curious character called
+Mitten, who is just as keen on birds as Fraser himself. Fraser only
+has Mitten’s spare time. Mitten’s regular work is with a Birmingham
+photographer, for whom he does developing and also has charge of the
+stock of negatives. Fraser is quite unlike me in the face, except that
+we both have the same deficiency of colour in the hair, but we are of
+about the same height and build. There is also a slight similarity in
+our voices. That was the rough material that I had at my disposal, and
+no doubt you can guess how I got my results from it.’
+
+‘You’d better continue,’ said the chairman, smiling.
+
+‘On the day before I left I pointed out to Fraser that a similarity in
+mass often prevented a dissimilarity in detail from being noticed, and
+that the attitude of expectant attention is a frequent source of
+error. Fraser asked me, as I had thought he would, what I meant and
+what I was getting at. I replied that by taking advantage of two facts
+I had mentioned he could probably get himself mistaken for me. He said
+that nobody would make the mistake. I said that Hammond’s butler would
+make it on the following afternoon, if he cared to try the experiment.
+
+‘“I’d like to try it, but it’s impossible. That butler has known me
+for the last two years, and he has only seen you four or five times in
+the afternoon. How could he be taken in?”
+
+‘“He has always seen you in dark and chastened clothing, such as it is
+your custom to wear. He has always seen me with a gray bowler, a light
+suit, white spats, and a distinctive necktie. He expects to see me
+to-morrow afternoon, because I borrowed an umbrella there to-day, and
+said I would bring it back then. All you have to do is to wear my
+clothes, and hand in that umbrella. He will expect to see me. He will
+actually see my clothes on a man of about my figure. The hall at the
+Hammonds’ house is rather dark, and you will have the sun behind you.
+It’s quite certain the man will be mistaken.”
+
+‘It was tried and happened as I had foretold. The butler addressed
+Fraser as Sir Charles.’
+
+‘But how did you manage about the photograph?’
+
+‘That was done by means of a bet. Old Mitten is a great believer in
+system, and has his own infallible method for cataloguing photographic
+negatives so that a mistake is impossible. I chaffed him about it and
+told him that I would cause him to enter two lots of negatives
+wrongly. I offered to bet a sovereign on it and he accepted with
+avidity. I then settled with Fraser what we would do. Fraser booked an
+appointment with the photographer for the morning that I left for
+London, and I booked another for myself in the afternoon, the
+appointments being made by post. I kept Fraser’s appointment just
+before I left for the station, and Fraser kept mine in the afternoon
+after he had finished with Hammond’s butler. Mitten found out what had
+been done, of course, catalogued the negatives correctly, and has
+collected his sovereign. But I understand that he has not informed his
+employer, on the ground that the employer dislikes larks. The entries
+in the appointment book remain as they were. So that it is on record
+that I was photographed in the afternoon, though the photographic
+negatives entered under my name are really those taken from me in the
+morning.’
+
+‘This,’ said the chairman, ‘is the most elaborate attempt we have had.
+Nobody else claims to have been seen in two places at the same time. I
+do not say that the evidence is perfect, but then the evidence of an
+alibi must always have a hole in it somewhere. Does anybody claim to
+have beaten it? Nobody? Then I have no hesitation in deciding in Sir
+Charles’s favour, and I congratulate him on the distinction—which, so
+far, has been held by Mr Pusely-Smythe alone—of winning the prize on
+two successive occasions.’
+
+The next problem was now read out. It was entitled ‘The Threepenny
+Problem,’ and ran as follows: ‘It is required to offer a half-crown
+for a threepenny bus-fare, and to receive the change wholly in
+threepenny bits. No gift or promise of a gift may be made to the
+conductor to induce him to give the change in this form.’
+
+‘That’s the easiest we’ve ever had,’ grumbled Major Byles. ‘So, of
+course, it’s my turn to be in the chair, and I can’t compete.’
+
+
+
+No. X.
+
+The Threepenny Problem
+
+‘Childs-play,’ said Major Byles, ‘that’s what this problem is. It is
+required to offer a half-crown for a threepenny bus-fare, and to
+receive the change wholly in threepenny-bits. And you’re not allowed
+to give the conductor anything or promise him anything as an
+inducement to let you have the nine threepennies. It’s my belief that
+you’d only have to ask in a civil way, and any conductor would do it
+for you. A more obliging set of men than the London bus-conductors
+couldn’t be found, except, perhaps, the London police. I don’t call it
+a problem at all. You’ll all win, of course, and that will mean a
+comfortable tenner for every member of the club except myself—just
+because I’m stuck up here in the chair. It’s scandalous.’ He snipped
+the end of a cigar ferociously, and lit it as if he took pleasure in
+its destruction—which, indeed, may have been the case. ‘However, I
+must do my duty, and I’ll call on my reverend friend, Mr Cunliffe, to
+tell us what he has done about it.’
+
+‘My story is a sad one,’ said the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe. ‘It leads me
+to believe that our chairman has over-estimated the amiability of the
+conductors and underestimated the difficulty of the problem. I gave a
+half-crown for a threepenny fare, and told the man that it would be a
+great kindness if he could let me have my change in threepenny pieces.
+He never said a word, but handed me a florin and three coppers.
+
+‘“Did you hear what I asked you?” I said to him.
+
+‘“Oh, yes,” he said, “I heard. If you want all them threepennies,
+you’d better get them out of the blanky offertory-bag next Sunday!”’
+
+‘Extraordinary,’ said the chairman. ‘Something must have occurred to
+ruffle the man’s temper. Did you find any difficulty, Bunford?’
+
+‘I failed absolutely,’ said Sir Charles Bunford. ‘No doubt I made a
+mistake in putting my request during the busy hour of the morning. The
+conductor looked resigned but sardonic.
+
+‘“Want it all in threepennies, do you?” he said. “Would you like them
+of any particular year?”
+
+‘I said that the date was immaterial. Any year would do.
+
+‘“That’s all right,” he said. “Then you can wait for next year’s.” And
+he gave me a shilling, a sixpence, and ninepence in what is generally
+described at the inquest as bronze.’
+
+‘Of course,’ said the chairman, ‘it was a mistake to bother the man
+when he was busy. And a little tact is wanted. If I’d been in for this
+competition myself I shouldn’t just have asked for my change in
+threepennies, I should have given some plausible reason for wanting
+it.’
+
+‘With great respect, sir,’ said Mr Quillian, ‘I must differ from you.
+I had the same idea and tried it. I told the conductor that I had a
+bet that I would get my change entirely in threepennies. I thought it
+would appeal to his sporting instinct. All he said was, “You’ve lost,
+then,” and gave me the change without as much as one threepenny in it.
+Seemed rather pleased about it, too.’
+
+‘I’d much the same experience,’ said Dr Alden. ‘As I gave the man my
+half-crown I mentioned that I was a collector of threepenny bits, and
+asked him if he could help me. He gave me two shillings and three
+pennies.
+
+‘“Well,” he said, “if you like to step off at the Bank of England and
+ask the Chief Cashier to give you threepennies for that little lot,
+you can mention my name.”’
+
+‘It’s quite possible,’ said the chairman, ‘that those conductors had
+not got the threepennies to give you. I go for days sometimes without
+as much as seeing a threepenny bit. It really looks as if the problem
+presented more difficulties than I had at first supposed. Did you
+manage to surmount them, Mr Matthews?’
+
+‘Can’t say I did, though I took a lot of trouble about it. There’s no
+two ways about it—if you put an unreasonable request to a complete
+stranger, whether he’s a bus-conductor or anything else, you’re likely
+to be sat on and not to get what you want either. I picked a bus in
+the slack time, running nearly empty, with a good-natured-looking
+conductor. I chatted with him for five minutes, and got him friendly
+disposed towards me, before I even mentioned threepennies. Then I
+asked him if he got many of them. He said he took enough of them to
+fill a pint-pot some days and he wished he didn’t. They were finicky
+things to handle and easy dropped. Well, that was a very good start. I
+gave him a half-crown for my threepenny ticket and told him that I
+would be glad to take as many threepenny bits off his hands as he
+liked to give me. Said I wanted them for a young nephew of mine. The
+man was quite willing, and if anybody had offered me twenty pounds
+just then for my chance of winning the prize to-night I’d have refused
+it. If anybody would give me twenty pence for the same chance at the
+present moment I’d jump at it. The trouble came in just as the
+chairman has indicated. The man looked through his silver and did his
+best for me, but one solitary threepenny was all he could raise. I got
+that one, of course, but one is not nine. It was just rotten bad luck.
+He said that nineteen days in twenty he could have given me a dozen of
+them, but he supposed it had to happen so.’
+
+‘You call that bad luck?’ said the Hon. James Feldane gloomily. ‘Not
+half as bitter as mine.’
+
+‘We’ll have the story of your failure, Jimmy,’ said the chairman.
+
+‘Failure’s nothing. I’ve failed before and shall do again. It’s what
+happened afterwards that worries me. All the same, I don’t know that I
+should have failed if I had simply trusted to my own judgment, but the
+woman looked so smart and brainy that I let myself be influenced,
+though she was really talking clotted nonsense.’
+
+‘You’re getting on too quickly,’ said the chairman. ‘To what woman do
+you refer?’
+
+‘How should I know? I haven’t an idea what her name is. She was one of
+a pack of hens that I found cackling in my sister’s drawing-room. They
+were discussing their maids and how to manage them, same as women have
+always done since the year one. The brainy-looking one said that when
+she had a reasonable order to give a maid, she always put it in the
+form of a request; but if she had an unreasonable request to make to a
+maid, she always put it in the form of an order. She said that this
+always bluffed the maid out. I thought there might be something in
+that bit of wisdom. If you give an order in an ordinary way, as if it
+were a matter of course, it may get taken in that spirit. Anyway, I
+thought I’d try it with the bus-conductor. I gave him my half-crown,
+and said in my light and casual way. “Threepenny ticket. And give me
+my change in threepenny bits.”
+
+‘He didn’t say anything. He just glared at me. If he had said anything
+it would probably have scorched the top off the bus. He gave me my
+change—with never a threepenny bit in it—and then glared some more.
+He’d got rather a good glare. Broke up my nerves, anyhow. At the next
+corner I hopped off.
+
+‘Now mark the sequel. A little later I owed a taxi eightpence, gave
+the man a half-crown and waited for my change. “Sorry, sir,” said the
+man, “but I shall have to give you six threepenny bits. I’ve got no
+other silver.”
+
+‘And that’s the way things happen. When you want a thing you can’t get
+it, and when you don’t want it it’s chucked at you.’
+
+‘Well, really,’ said the chairman, without a blush, ‘as I foresaw,
+this turns out to be a very difficult problem. No interruptions,
+please. I know that I did not actually say that it was very difficult,
+but it was in my mind. It looked easy, as I pointed out in my opening
+remarks, but nobody knows better than I do that appearances are often
+deceptive. I shall call upon our great expert and prize-winner, Mr
+Pusely-Smythe. I am confident that he will have realised the
+difficulties and taken his measures accordingly.’
+
+Mr Pusely-Smythe smiled grimly and sardonically. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he
+said, ‘for your kind words. I do not want to brag, but I gave this
+problem my very earnest consideration, and I do think that I realised
+some at least of the difficulties before me. I saw, firstly, that it
+was possible and even probable that the conductor might not have nine
+threepenny-bits to give me. Now some company-promoters have found out
+that the best way to get gold out of a gold-mine is to start by
+putting a little gold into it. I adopted that principle. I selected a
+certain bus on a certain route. I arranged that on the journey just
+before I made my appearance no fewer than twelve passengers would pay
+their fares with threepenny-bits. It only required a little
+organisation. If you tell a human boy or even a human girl to take
+your threepenny bit, pay a penny bus fare with it, and keep the
+change, you get willing service without any troublesome demand for
+explanations. Secondly, I had to have a story to tell the conductor
+that would induce him to oblige me. I was prepared to tell him that a
+friend had promised me that if I could collect a thousand
+threepenny-bits for the London Hospital, he would add double that
+amount to it.
+
+‘I notice, sir, an unworthy expression of suspicion on the face of my
+learned friend Mr Quillian. My story for the conductor was not only
+plausible—it was actually true. I was the man who had made that
+promise to myself. (If I am not my own friend, who is?) Further, I was
+so absolutely certain of success that I remitted the sum in question,
+thirty-two pounds ten shillings, to the hospital and have a receipt
+for it. When I deducted the thirty-two pounds ten shillings
+expenditure from the hundred and ten pounds prize, I calculated that
+it would still leave a living wage for myself. Well, that was the
+position. I saw that there were two main difficulties in this problem,
+and I had arranged to meet both of them.’
+
+‘Quite so,’ said the chairman. ‘As I’ve always said, these things need
+to be worked out in a clear-minded and systematic way. And the result
+was all right?’
+
+Pusely-Smythe’s smile was more sardonic than ever. ‘Much depends on
+the point of view; it was all right from some points of view.
+Punctually at the time I had fixed I took my seat on the top of the
+bus I had selected. About a minute later the conductor came up to
+collect the fares. I felt for my half-crown. I had not got any
+half-crown. I had no money on me whatever. I had inadvertently left my
+money at home. There was nobody on the bus to whom I could apply for
+temporary assistance. Well, there was no help for it. The conductor
+was weary, but firm. He told me to hop off the bus and not to try it
+on again. I hopped. It may have been all right from the point of view
+of the other competitors, but from my own point of view it was less
+satisfactory. And it only shows, as we all know, that you may lose
+your game by missing a perfectly easy shot.’
+
+Mr Wildersley, A.R.A., had demanded threepennies from a conductor on
+the ground that he was collecting them. The conductor had replied that
+he was there to take the fares, not to supply private museums. Mr
+Austin had met a most obliging conductor, who, however, had no
+threepennies in his possession. Lord Herngill and Mr Hesseltine had
+only contemptuous refusals to record.
+
+This, of course, happened before the war. In times when the gentler,
+kindlier, and more refined sex has charge of our public vehicles, the
+problem might prove easy of solution.
+
+‘Well,’ the chairman began, ‘it looks as if the whole lot of you
+duffers had failed.’ Here the secretary, Lord Herngill, whispered a
+few warning words in his ear, and the chairman nodded assent.
+
+‘Yes,’ he resumed, ‘it may look to you duffers as if the whole lot of
+you had failed, but of course that would be wrong. Nobody has
+succeeded in getting nine threepennies in change. But in that case the
+nearest approximation to that number wins. Mr Matthews got one
+threepenny, and conformed to the conditions. Nobody else even got one.
+Therefore I declare Mr Matthews to be the winner, and the club cheque
+for one hundred and ten pounds will be drawn to his order.’
+
+Jimmy Feldane confided his private sorrows to his friend Hesseltine.
+‘I don’t mind old Matthews winning. He’s a genial old bird, and what
+he don’t know about the noble art of dining ain’t worth worrying over.
+But there is just one thing that makes me want to kick myself round
+and round this room till I get giddy. When Matthews told us his yarn,
+he said he’d take twenty pence for his chance of the prize. I ought to
+have been on to it in a flash, if not sooner. One-and-eight for a
+sporting chance of a hundred and ten pounds is good enough. The more I
+think of it, the more I see that I ought not to be allowed out except
+in charge of a nursemaid.’
+
+‘Oh, we all missed that chance,’ said Hesseltine. ‘Maybe a little
+drink might do us some good.’
+
+While they were taking the medicine indicated, the chairman read out
+the problem which was to employ them during the following month. The
+fantastic editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_ had entitled it, ‘The
+Q-Loan Problem,’ and its terms were as follows:—
+
+‘It is required in three days to borrow as many things as possible,
+the name of each thing to begin with the letter Q. Nothing counts for
+the competition if its name is on the list of more than one member. No
+money may be given or promised in respect of any loan.’
+
+‘And to-morrow morning, bright and early,’ said Jimmy, ‘I’m off to the
+Zoo in a taxi to see if I can’t borrow their quagga.’
+
+
+
+No. XI.
+
+The Q-Loan Problem
+
+The problem which came up for adjudication on this occasion was as
+follows:—
+
+‘It is required in three days to borrow as many things as possible,
+the name of each thing to begin with the letter Q. Nothing counts for
+the competition if its name is on the list of more than one member. No
+money may be given or promised in respect of any loan.’
+
+‘I’ve arranged this,’ said Mr Austin, who was the chairman for the
+evening, ‘so as to avoid any overstrain for myself. I shall call on
+that notorious painter and decorator, Mr Wildersley, to begin with his
+list. When he has finished he will call on somebody else. The second
+man in his turn will name the third, and so on. If anything is read
+out by another member which is also down on your own list, hold up
+your hand. The secretary will keep the score. That leaves me
+absolutely nothing to do until it is time to announce the winner, and
+I shall probably go to sleep. So don’t make any disturbing noises,
+please. You can begin now, Wildersley.’
+
+‘My score is six,’ said Wildersley, ‘unless some of you selfish men
+have had the same ideas as I have. On my first day I borrowed two
+things—one of which people seem to show hesitation about lending,
+while the other was a thing that very few people have got to lend
+nowadays. In fact, I borrowed a quid and a quill-pen.’
+
+Many hands went up.
+
+‘This is painful and surprising,’ said Wildersley, ‘and reduces my
+score to four. On the second day I visited a female relative, said
+that I had a cold coming on, and had no difficulty in borrowing some
+quinine and a quilt.’
+
+But a show of hands indicated that others had found it equally easy.
+
+‘That brings me down to two, but the last two are good. I doubt if any
+other member could have thought of them, or could have borrowed them
+in any case. But I happen to know a painter who has got whole
+wardrobes full of costumes—uses them for his alleged pictures. From
+him I borrowed, firstly, a queue.’
+
+‘I appeal to the chairman,’ said Jimmy Feldane confidently. ‘That word
+is spelled with a K.’
+
+‘No,’ said the chairman. ‘You are probably thinking of the Gardens of
+the same name.’
+
+‘In any case it’s the thing they have outside the pit entrance, and
+you can’t borrow it.’
+
+‘That will be for Mr Wildersley to explain.’
+
+‘I did not borrow a crowd outside a pit entrance,’ said Wildersley.
+‘But I did borrow the tie of a wig, which is another meaning of the
+word. That’s one to me, anyhow. And I also borrowed a quoif.’
+
+‘Surely, sir,’ said Mr Quillian, ‘that word is spelled with a C?’
+
+The chairman consulted a useful work of reference, and announced that
+the word was spelled in both ways.
+
+‘May we have your authority for that statement?’
+
+‘Standard dictionary.’
+
+‘And will you define a standard dictionary for the purposes of this
+competition?’
+
+‘For the purposes of this competition a standard dictionary is any
+dictionary that was published subsequently to the eighteenth century
+and cost more than fivepence-halfpenny originally.’
+
+‘It doesn’t much matter really, for as the word is also on my own list
+neither Wildersley nor I can score it.’
+
+‘You might have said that before,’ said the chairman. ‘It looks as if
+you were giving me trouble on purpose.’
+
+And it is quite possible that his surmise was correct. The Problem
+Club does not allow its chairman to sleep when on duty. Sir Charles
+Bunford requested him to state what Mr Wildersley’s score was; and it
+may not have been from inadvertence that Wildersley neglected to name
+his successor and left it to the chairman to do so. He called upon Dr
+Alden.
+
+‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘I had borrowed quinine, of course, but that
+has been ruled out. I also borrowed some quassia from the same man. No
+hands up? I think I score one for quassia, if the chairman admits it.’
+
+The chairman consulted his dictionary and said that quassia appeared
+to be all right. He was immediately asked by Mr Pusely-Smythe if he
+could inform the members whether quassia was a summer drink or an
+intermittent fever.
+
+‘At the present moment,’ said Mr Austin severely, ‘I am giving my most
+eager and concentrated attention to the conscientious discharge of my
+arduous duties. I cannot be interrupted by purely frivolous questions.
+Dr Alden will proceed.’
+
+‘I further borrowed a quadrant and a thermometer.’
+
+‘I fear,’ said the chairman, ‘that I must rule that the word
+thermometer does not begin with the letter Q.’
+
+‘Your rapid grasp of these fine points, sir, impels my admiration. But
+with great respect I would point out that this thermometer contained
+mercury, and therefore in borrowing the thermometer I borrowed
+quicksilver. My remaining loans consisted of a quarto and a
+quotation.’
+
+But other members had borrowed both a quarto and a quotation. Dr Alden
+was accordingly left with a score of three.
+
+Major Byles, who came next, had done better. In the course of a
+morning stroll with a neighbouring landowner over his property, he had
+borrowed some weird things. His list consisted of a quarry, a
+quicksand, some quickset, quitch-grass, and quick-lime. And as none of
+these things had been borrowed by any other member he scored five. But
+he did not seem entirely happy about it.
+
+‘The trouble with these problems,’ he said, ‘is that one has to do
+absolutely idiotic things, and consequently one is likely to be
+thought an absolute idiot. I did the best I could. I invented quite a
+plausible story about a geological friend to account for the quarry
+and the quicksand. But I believe that my neighbour goes about saying
+that poor old Byles is far from well, and tapping his forehead to
+indicate the nature of my complaint. It’s most unpleasant. Still, five
+ain’t such a bad score. How did you get on with that quagga, Jimmy?’
+
+‘Nothing doing,’ said Jimmy. ‘I went to the Zoo, just as I said I
+would. But, if you ask me, the whole place is rotten with red tape and
+officialism. They wouldn’t lend me the blessed quagga, though I
+promised them I’d return it in five minutes. Said it was not customary
+to lend out the animals, and a lot of silly talk like that. Quite
+obstinate about it, too. I’d got Hesseltine there to take a snapshot
+of me shepherding the quagga in the wilds of Regent’s Park, and it
+simply meant our valuable time thrown away. Also, it appeared that
+quaggas are out of print and they’d not got one.
+
+‘But quite apart from that I’m not claiming to have won. I’ve only got
+two things down on my list that have not been claimed so far. The
+first was the queen of spades from a pack of cards, and the second is
+the four kings from the same pack. I don’t spell the word king with a
+Q, but the four of them are a quatorse, at piquet. But a score of
+two’s no use, and I shall probably be described on my tombstone as
+brainy but unfortunate. Meanwhile I notice a sunny smile on the face
+of our padre, as if he were a prize-winner. He might tell us how he
+did it.’
+
+The Rev. Septimus Cunliffe had certainly been energetic and
+industrious. To start with he had called upon an old friend of his, a
+man of some learning, with an interest in music and a fair library.
+Here he had no difficulty in borrowing Quixote, Quivedo, Quintillian,
+Quain, and some quadrilles, quartets, and quintets. He engaged his
+host in a discussion as to the precise meaning of a quip, a quirk, and
+a quiddity, persuaded him to write down an instance of each, and
+borrowed the instances. He borrowed a quatrain of his host’s
+composition, and twenty-four sheets of notepaper, which make a quire.
+
+The next two days were less productive, but he borrowed a specimen of
+quartz from one man, and a dog, which was unquestionably a quadruped,
+from another. A lady who was interested in archery lent him a quiver.
+Loans of a quoit, a quart of milk, and a quarter of coal were also
+negotiated.
+
+But all the same, his smile of self-congratulation was premature. He
+was not destined to score eighteen, for the simple reason that he had
+not borrowed a single thing which was not on the list of either Lord
+Herngill, or Mr Quillian, or Mr Pusely-Smythe. And they in their turn
+could not score because everything on their lists was also on the
+parson’s. Industry had cancelled industry; ingenuity had destroyed
+ingenuity.
+
+The only other member who could produce a score at all was Mr
+Matthews. He registered a modest score of one for having borrowed a
+quarrel. It was in vain that Hesseltine maintained that you could pick
+a quarrel but could not borrow one. The chairman referred to his
+standard dictionary and learned that a quarrel was not necessarily a
+dispute; it might be a diamond-shaped pane of glass, which was, in
+fact, what Mr Matthews had borrowed.
+
+‘Well,’ said the chairman, ‘Major Byles is the winner, and I think he
+deserves to be. The rest of you were a tame set of sheep, laborious
+and ingenious, but without any proper spirit of enterprise. But nobody
+could walk out calmly one morning and borrow a quarry and a quicksand
+unless he were really adventurous. To do that was magnificent and
+Elizabethan. I confess that I should like to know what the neighbour
+said when the Major borrowed the quitch-grass.’
+
+‘Oh, the old chap didn’t say much,’ said Major Byles. ‘That was the
+last thing I borrowed, and by that time he seemed rather worried and
+nervous. I told him quite a good story, too, about a nephew in London
+who wanted a specimen for botanical purposes. The real trouble was
+that, as it had to be a loan, I sent the beastly weed back to him
+three days later. That was when he decided I really must have had a
+touch of the sun, or had given way to the habit, or something of that
+kind. But I shall live it down. Anyway, I’ve won, and I don’t care if
+it snows.’
+
+‘Quite so. In the problems of this club, as in the problems of life,
+it sometimes happens that courage and character will do more than low
+cunning to effect a solution. And I hope that this will be a lesson to
+certain members who, by a series of vexatious and needless questions,
+have deprived me of my proper rest this evening. However, I shall
+shortly be taking it out of them at bridge, and they have my
+forgiveness.’
+
+‘If,’ said Pusely-Smythe, ‘the chairman has finished infringing the
+prerogative of our padre by delivering a sermon, he will perhaps
+inform us what the next problem is.’
+
+‘Certainly,’ said the chairman cheerfully. ‘I was forgetting. It is Dr
+Alden’s turn to take the chair next time, but complications have
+arisen. I’ve had a letter from the talented editor of _The
+Pig-Keepers’ Friend_, who sets our problems, and, as you will
+remember, was introduced to us by Lord Herngill. It appears that, in
+consequence of his personal knowledge of the esteemed editor, Lord
+Herngill would have an unfair advantage in this next competition, and
+is therefore with his own consent disqualified for it. But for the
+same reason he is specially qualified to adjudicate on the problem. I
+have mentioned the matter to Herngill and the Doctor, and they are
+both willing to exchange their turns as chairman. So that, subject to
+your approval, Herngill will be the chairman at our next meeting. I
+will put it to you, gentlemen.’
+
+The proposal met with general approval.
+
+‘That’s all right,’ said the chairman. ‘Then we can have the
+card-tables brought in. And if I can only manage to cut with the
+Major, I fancy that our opponents will have a pretty thin time. This
+is his evening.’
+
+‘I do not wish,’ said Mr Quillian solemnly, ‘to dispute the statement,
+but even now we do not know what the problem for next month is to be.’
+
+‘You’re right,’ said the chairman; ‘you’re absolutely right. It’s
+funny, but if I forget a thing once I nearly always forget it twice.
+However, as a matter of fact, I don’t yet know it myself. Here it is
+in its sealed envelope. We will investigate it.’
+
+He tore open the envelope and glanced at the contents.
+
+‘Well,’ he said, ‘I really don’t know why he made so much fuss about
+it. You couldn’t have anything simpler. He calls it “The Pig-Keeper’s
+Problem.” This is all it is: “It is required to buy a copy of the
+current issue of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_.” I don’t see any
+difficulty about that, do you, Leonard?’
+
+But Leonard declined to be drawn. ‘I should like to have notice of
+that question,’ he said.
+
+
+
+No. XII.
+
+The Pig-Keeper’s Problem
+
+‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the chairman, Lord Herngill, ‘you have been
+required to purchase a copy of the current issue of _The Pig-Keepers’
+Friend_. It is generally published on the seventh of every month, but
+if the talented editor happens to be thinking about something else at
+the time—as occasionally happens—it may come out a few days later. It
+is published according to the law, but it cannot be said to court
+circulation. It is exposed for sale in certain places, but I doubt if
+any copy has been purchased by the general public for the last year—at
+any rate, not until the members of this club went on the hunt for it.
+How did you get on, Major Byles?’
+
+‘Wish I’d never gone in for it,’ snapped the Major. ‘I told my regular
+newsagent to get me a copy. He said he hadn’t heard of it, but would
+make inquiries. At the end of a week he came to me with a story that,
+as far as he had been able to learn, the paper had discontinued
+publication a year before. I knew that was a lie, of course, and told
+him so, and said I’d finished with him. There’s only one other
+newsagent near me, and I had to go to him. His beastly boy leaves the
+wrong papers at the house every morning, and seems to think I’m a
+Socialist like himself. The end of it will be that I shall have to eat
+my own words and go back to the other man. Destroys all discipline,
+that kind of thing.’
+
+Dr Alden, Pusely-Smythe, and several others had hunted trade lists and
+directories in vain. Mr Matthews had lavished money on advertisements,
+offering a sovereign for a copy of the current issue of _The
+Pig-Keepers’ Friend_, and had received no reply.
+
+Sir Charles Bunford had written to an old friend who held a high
+position at the British Museum, asking him to get hold of some recent
+number of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_, and let him have the address at
+which it was published. After some delay the friend replied that he
+had seen a copy of the periodical, and that it appeared to be the work
+of a lunatic, and that the address given in it was ‘The Impersonation
+Society, Boswell Court, Fleet Street.’
+
+‘It certainly looked to me,’ said Sir Charles, ‘as if I had got hold
+of the right end of the stick. I found the office, which appeared to
+occupy the whole of the top floor of the building. The name of the
+society was painted on the outer door, and underneath was the legend,
+“Hours, Ten to Four.” It was then eleven in the morning. I knocked and
+rang, and could get no answer at all, and I could hear no sound of any
+activity within. I came back at three in the afternoon with the same
+result. I then sent a letter, saying that I required a copy of the
+current number of the paper, and wished to know what amount I should
+forward for the purpose; and to make it quite certain I enclosed a
+stamped and addressed envelope. Well, I got a reply, with an illegible
+signature. It said that no retail business was done at the office, but
+that I could apply for the copy through the usual channels. I still
+thought that I was on the right line, and gave the address to my
+newsagent and set him to work. The answer he got was that the current
+issue was out of print, all copies having been allocated. So there I
+stuck.’
+
+‘You came rather near to it, though,’ said the chairman. ‘Suppose we
+shorten matters. Does any member claim to have won this competition?
+Our friend Jimmy has been looking rather pleased with himself all the
+evening.’
+
+‘Have I?’ said Jimmy. ‘Well, I don’t mind admitting that I’ve jolly
+good reason to be pleased with myself just now, quite apart from the
+competition. I’ve won that too, as it happens. But I don’t take much
+credit for it. Of course, you could say that it was due to the
+improved habits and all that, and I suppose that was so, more or less,
+but the fact remains that I wasn’t even thinking about the thing at
+the time, and if I hadn’t forgotten my cigarette-case it would never
+have happened. So if you don’t call it luck, what are you to call it?’
+
+‘Mr Feldane,’ said the chairman, with great gravity, ‘you are
+beginning your story at the wrong end—that is, with the criticism of
+it. I must ask you to tell us simply what happened from the very
+commencement, and as coherently as possible.’
+
+‘Certainly,’ said Jimmy indulgently, ‘any old way that you happen to
+fancy. Well, to start with, though as a matter of fact it had been
+going on for more than a week before, they asked me to dine with them
+at the house on Wimbledon Common. So naturally I jumped at it. I won’t
+say I had always been addicted to the scenery of Wimbledon, but there
+were certain private reasons.’
+
+‘Private reasons for dining at Wimbledon?’ said Hesseltine
+reflectively. ‘I think I know her name, don’t I?’
+
+‘Wish you wouldn’t interrupt just at the moment when I’m being
+coherent. I was going to dine at Wimbledon, and it takes some doing to
+get there. My own little car was in hospital, and the natural way
+seemed to be to take a taxi, and let it tick up the twopences until I
+wanted to go back. Then I reflected that I had decided to give up all
+silly extravagance, and on inquiry I found that there was a place
+called Waterloo Station from which I could book to Wimbledon. So I did
+so. I didn’t smoke on my way out, which must have been a kind of
+absent-mindedness. It was on my way back that I found that I had
+forgotten my cigarette-case. Now nothing makes you feel you must smoke
+so much as the knowledge that you can’t. I hopped out at Vauxhall and
+found a taxi right away—I’d got all the luck in the world that night.
+I told the driver where to go and to stop at a tobacconist’s, and do
+it soon. The shop he stopped at, in a back street off a side street,
+didn’t look up to much, but I was desperate and ready to smoke
+anything that was called a Turkish cigarette. Behind the counter I
+found a fat, middle-aged man reading a book. He gave me something that
+would do, took my money, and called me sir. But he was no more a
+tobacconist than I am.
+
+‘Tobacconists may do a lot of funny things, but they don’t read the
+_Agamemnon_ of Æschylus in the original Greek, which is what this
+blighter was doing. Nor do they have manicured nails and an Oxford
+intonation—his attempt at a Cockney accent was one of the most
+pathetic failures I’ve ever met. However, that’s not the point. The
+point is that on the counter was a small pile of copies of the current
+number of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_. The number consisted of sixteen
+pages, and they were very small pages, and the price was one pound,
+but I did not hesitate. I bought my copy, and I have it in my pocket
+now. I’ll hand it up to our chairman. I’ve had a glance at it myself,
+and I’m inclined to agree with that Museum johnnie. It’s got nothing
+to do with pigs. It’s mostly poetry and the rest is foolishness. It
+beats me altogether.’
+
+The chairman examined the copy of the paper which had been handed to
+him. ‘There is no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘This is a copy of the
+current issue, and Mr Feldane assures us that he bought it. No other
+claim is put forward. The club’s cheque for one hundred and ten pounds
+will therefore be drawn to the order of Mr Feldane. Has any member
+anything to add?’
+
+‘I have,’ said Mr Matthews. ‘The whole thing wants clearing up, and I
+hope our chairman will clear it. Is our problem-setter really a
+lunatic? What is he doing with this weird paper of his? What’s the
+Impersonation Society? Who was the over-educated tobacconist? We’d
+like the whole story.’
+
+And to this there was general assent.
+
+‘I’ve no objection,’ said Lord Herngill. ‘Willy Bunting has empowered
+me to tell you anything I like about him, including the truth. The
+fact is that in this problem the members of this club have come up
+against another organisation, the Impersonation Society, which is one
+of Bunting’s curious inventions.
+
+‘I first knew him as an undergraduate. I thought a good deal of his
+ability both as a poet and as an amateur actor. He was also no end of
+a lark. He was not a lunatic, but he had endless eccentricities. He
+had no ambitions, a contempt for public opinion, and a determination
+to do just as he liked. He was sent down for impersonating one of the
+proctors. He was beautifully made up, and looked exactly like that
+proctor, but he had the misfortune to meet the original in Trumpington
+Street.
+
+‘This disaster did not greatly trouble him. He had more money than was
+good for him and was not intending to take up any profession. He came
+to London, and shortly afterwards he started the Impersonation
+Society. His theory was that the ordinary holiday is a mistake, and
+that what a tired man or woman wants is not only a change of place but
+a change of personality. In order to get a complete rest you must, for
+the time being, be somebody else. You must dress and live like the
+character you have assumed and you must even try to think like him. I
+am by no means sure that there is not something to be said for the
+idea. There must be plenty of people who think so, for the membership
+of the society has increased every year, and includes some of the very
+last people that you would expect to find in such an organisation.
+
+‘For instance, the man that Jimmy found in the tobacconist’s shop in
+the Vauxhall neighbourhood, is in reality the head master and
+proprietor of a large and successful private school. All through
+term-time he is treated with intense respect. Little boys call him
+sir, and tremble before him. His assistant masters treat him with a
+deference which they are probably very far from feeling. He lives in
+an atmosphere of sickening and insincere flattery, and smoking is
+strictly prohibited. So in his holiday he becomes a tobacconist’s
+assistant, smokes all day, goes about in his shirt-sleeves, treats
+customers with respect, is respected by nobody himself, professes no
+more virtues than he really has, and thoroughly enjoys it. He says
+that it keeps him sane. The shop itself is, of course, the property of
+the society, and a resident manager trains those members who wish to
+take a holiday there.
+
+‘I should perhaps explain why Sir Charles Bunford was unable to obtain
+entrance to the rooms of the society. He misinterpreted the legend on
+the door. The hours are ten to four, but they are from ten at night to
+four in the morning. I may add that it was once raided by the police,
+to the intense disappointment of the police and to the great joy of
+the members, particularly Willy Bunting.
+
+‘But I must tell you something of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_. Willy’s
+nearest relative is an irascible uncle, who told him that he was
+wasting his life. Willy said that, on the contrary, he was enjoying
+it. The uncle maintained that Willy did nothing, and Willy replied
+that he wrote poetry. Then the indignant uncle did a foolish thing. He
+said that he was prepared to bet a hundred pounds that Willy never had
+a poem accepted by the editor of any existing periodical published in
+London. Willy jumped at that bet. That moribund monthly, _The
+Pig-Keepers’ Friend_ was at that time in the market. It had lost its
+circulation and had never had advertisements. The wretched enthusiast
+who had brought it into being was heartily sick of it. Willy offered a
+fiver for it, which was more than it was worth, and instantly became
+the proprietor. He then appointed himself editor, and in his editorial
+capacity accepted one of his own poems and printed it in the next
+issue. A prefatory note said that the editor had no doubt that the
+weary pig-keeper would be glad to beguile his hours of leisure with
+the following poem by his esteemed contributor, William Bunting. Willy
+sent a copy of it to his uncle, received his hundred, and was cut out
+of the uncle’s last will and testament.
+
+‘Having acquired the magazine, Willy proceeded to make it the organ of
+the Impersonation Society. He still printed his own poems in it, and
+occasionally mine, but it was principally devoted to the cryptic
+record of the many strange activities of the Impersonation Society.
+The original title was retained, and occasional references to pigs and
+pig-keeping will be found in it. For instance, in the current number
+there are a number of spoof inquiries from agonised pig-keepers
+seeking the expert advice of the editor in their difficulties. One of
+them asks how, in the event of his pigs swarming, he is to know which
+of them is the queen. The editor’s replies are humorous and in some
+cases, I regret to say, Rabelaisian.
+
+‘The present issue of the paper was on sale at the tobacconist’s. It
+has also been offered in the public streets by a supposed newsvender
+every day for the last month. The only copy purchased was bought by
+Jimmy, who found it by accident. As the paper is sold only by members,
+Mr Matthews will understand why his advertisements failed to get any
+result. And now that I’ve answered your questions, I’d like to put one
+to our prize-winner.’
+
+‘Go ahead,’ said Jimmy.
+
+‘How many times have you dined at Wimbledon in the last week?’
+
+‘Four times, as it happens. You see, the views there over the Common
+are really——’
+
+‘You needn’t continue. You’ve said enough. I am sure that I may offer
+you the hearty congratulations of the club on your engagement.’
+
+‘Well, I’m blest,’ said Jimmy. ‘I am engaged, I’m pleased and proud to
+say, but how on earth did you know?’
+
+‘In many ways, and I’ll tell you one. Only one thing on earth could
+have made you forget your cigarette-case.’
+
+And naturally the next thing to do was to drink to the health of Jimmy
+and his future bride. And it was done with great enthusiasm.
+
+
+And here the chronicles of the Problem Club must come to an end. The
+story of how Willy Bunting became a member of the club and
+subsequently retired from it, and how the solution of one problem
+brought the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe into the police-court, and how the
+solution of another made Mr Matthews miss his dinner, and how a negro
+failed to get into the club, and how a girl of seventeen was actually
+elected—these things with many others must remain hidden in the club
+archives.
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note
+
+This transcription in based on the text of 1919 edition published by
+W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. However, the following are believed to be
+unambiguous errors in the text, and have been corrected:
+
+ * “climbin” was changed to “climbing” (Chapter I).
+ * “Pusely Smythe” was changed to “Pusely-Smythe” (Chapter VII).
+ * Two misspellings of “_The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_” were corrected.
+ * Seven occurrences of mismatched quotation marks have been repaired.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75598 ***