Chapter I: Part 1

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.

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.