‘Well,’ said the chairman, ‘Major Byles is the winner, and I think he deserves to be. The rest of you were a tame set of sheep, laborious and ingenious, but without any proper spirit of enterprise. But nobody could walk out calmly one morning and borrow a quarry and a quicksand unless he were really adventurous. To do that was magnificent and Elizabethan. I confess that I should like to know what the neighbour said when the Major borrowed the quitch-grass.’ ‘Oh, the old chap didn’t say much,’ said Major Byles. ‘That was the last thing I borrowed, and by that time he seemed rather worried and nervous. I told him quite a good story, too, about a nephew in London who wanted a specimen for botanical purposes. The real trouble was that, as it had to be a loan, I sent the beastly weed back to him three days later. That was when he decided I really must have had a touch of the sun, or had given way to the habit, or something of that kind. But I shall live it down. Anyway, I’ve won, and I don’t care if it snows.’ ‘Quite so. In the problems of this club, as in the problems of life, it sometimes happens that courage and character will do more than low cunning to effect a solution. And I hope that this will be a lesson to certain members who, by a series of vexatious and needless questions, have deprived me of my proper rest this evening. However, I shall shortly be taking it out of them at bridge, and they have my forgiveness.’ ‘If,’ said Pusely-Smythe, ‘the chairman has finished infringing the prerogative of our padre by delivering a sermon, he will perhaps inform us what the next problem is.’ ‘Certainly,’ said the chairman cheerfully. ‘I was forgetting. It is Dr Alden’s turn to take the chair next time, but complications have arisen. I’ve had a letter from the talented editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_, who sets our problems, and, as you will remember, was introduced to us by Lord Herngill. It appears that, in consequence of his personal knowledge of the esteemed editor, Lord Herngill would have an unfair advantage in this next competition, and is therefore with his own consent disqualified for it. But for the same reason he is specially qualified to adjudicate on the problem. I have mentioned the matter to Herngill and the Doctor, and they are both willing to exchange their turns as chairman. So that, subject to your approval, Herngill will be the chairman at our next meeting. I will put it to you, gentlemen.’ The proposal met with general approval. ‘That’s all right,’ said the chairman. ‘Then we can have the card-tables brought in. And if I can only manage to cut with the Major, I fancy that our opponents will have a pretty thin time. This is his evening.’ ‘I do not wish,’ said Mr Quillian solemnly, ‘to dispute the statement, but even now we do not know what the problem for next month is to be.’