‘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.