‘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.’