‘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.