It is probably unnecessary to remark that he derives his nickname from the fact that his sister had been named Judith. He was christened John Benedict Corbin, as were his father and grandfather, both now long dead, before him. And perhaps, since I have been in a way commissioned to set down an account of the business of the next few days and the trouble it involved, I may as well begin being a little more explicit. The consensus seems to be that I know as much about it as anybody, though--or perhaps because--I have really been very little involved. I might have been involved a good deal deeper, since I’m the Corbins’ only near neighbor. The original plan had been that on the occasion of Judith’s wedding--an old-style country wedding it was to be--I should keep bachelor’s hall for the groom, his best man and some of the ushers. Also, as a traditional friend of the family, I’d have been over at The Oaks most of the time from the beginning of the festivities to the end. But my house, a few days earlier, had been pretty well wrecked and gutted by a bad fire, and in the course of my efforts to get things out of the burning building, I’d had the serious misfortune--that, anyhow, was the way I felt about it at the time--to break my leg. In the light of ensuing events, I’m not altogether sorry that I had to spend those wretched days in my gardener’s cottage with my leg in a cast. It had, at least, its compensations. Nobody, as far as I know, from first to last suspected me of complicity in, or even guilty knowledge of, any crime. A pair of crutches, which I was frightfully clumsy with, a twenty-pound cast on my leg and an iron-clad alibi served to protect me. And with Punch for a daily visitor, I don’t think I missed much of the excitement. It is possible that since he takes his obligations seriously, he felt he owed me something in return for the thrill he’d been afforded by my fire and my broken leg. He’d helped the surgeon put on the cast--this was before my nurse arrived--and he took a professional, almost a proprietary, interest in the damaged limb from that point on. But I’m proud to believe that Punch likes me. I’m not often, he’s good enough to imply, betrayed into that levity in dealing with serious matters, to which most of my generation are incorrigibly addicted. I’m coeval more or less with his mother. I’ve always known Victoria and got on with her well enough, though I never was one of her numerous adorers. Perhaps it was their numerousness that put me off. I haven’t, either, in the years since her husband’s death, always applauded her judgment, especially in the matter of bringing up her children. But I’d be the first to admit that she’s had difficulties. Oh well, perhaps, since I’ve already kept Punch waiting so long, I may as well go ahead and tell my history right end to.