‘I’ve arranged this,’ said Mr Austin, who was the chairman for the evening, ‘so as to avoid any overstrain for myself. I shall call on that notorious painter and decorator, Mr Wildersley, to begin with his list. When he has finished he will call on somebody else. The second man in his turn will name the third, and so on. If anything is read out by another member which is also down on your own list, hold up your hand. The secretary will keep the score. That leaves me absolutely nothing to do until it is time to announce the winner, and I shall probably go to sleep. So don’t make any disturbing noises, please. You can begin now, Wildersley.’ ‘My score is six,’ said Wildersley, ‘unless some of you selfish men have had the same ideas as I have. On my first day I borrowed two things—one of which people seem to show hesitation about lending, while the other was a thing that very few people have got to lend nowadays. In fact, I borrowed a quid and a quill-pen.’ Many hands went up. ‘This is painful and surprising,’ said Wildersley, ‘and reduces my score to four. On the second day I visited a female relative, said that I had a cold coming on, and had no difficulty in borrowing some quinine and a quilt.’ But a show of hands indicated that others had found it equally easy. ‘That brings me down to two, but the last two are good. I doubt if any other member could have thought of them, or could have borrowed them in any case. But I happen to know a painter who has got whole wardrobes full of costumes—uses them for his alleged pictures. From him I borrowed, firstly, a queue.’ ‘I appeal to the chairman,’ said Jimmy Feldane confidently. ‘That word is spelled with a K.’ ‘No,’ said the chairman. ‘You are probably thinking of the Gardens of the same name.’ ‘In any case it’s the thing they have outside the pit entrance, and you can’t borrow it.’ ‘That will be for Mr Wildersley to explain.’ ‘I did not borrow a crowd outside a pit entrance,’ said Wildersley. ‘But I did borrow the tie of a wig, which is another meaning of the word. That’s one to me, anyhow. And I also borrowed a quoif.’ ‘Surely, sir,’ said Mr Quillian, ‘that word is spelled with a C?’ The chairman consulted a useful work of reference, and announced that the word was spelled in both ways. ‘May we have your authority for that statement?’ ‘Standard dictionary.’ ‘And will you define a standard dictionary for the purposes of this competition?’ ‘For the purposes of this competition a standard dictionary is any dictionary that was published subsequently to the eighteenth century and cost more than fivepence-halfpenny originally.’ ‘It doesn’t much matter really, for as the word is also on my own list neither Wildersley nor I can score it.’ ‘You might have said that before,’ said the chairman. ‘It looks as if you were giving me trouble on purpose.’