‘Wish you wouldn’t interrupt just at the moment when I’m being coherent. I was going to dine at Wimbledon, and it takes some doing to get there. My own little car was in hospital, and the natural way seemed to be to take a taxi, and let it tick up the twopences until I wanted to go back. Then I reflected that I had decided to give up all silly extravagance, and on inquiry I found that there was a place called Waterloo Station from which I could book to Wimbledon. So I did so. I didn’t smoke on my way out, which must have been a kind of absent-mindedness. It was on my way back that I found that I had forgotten my cigarette-case. Now nothing makes you feel you must smoke so much as the knowledge that you can’t. I hopped out at Vauxhall and found a taxi right away—I’d got all the luck in the world that night. I told the driver where to go and to stop at a tobacconist’s, and do it soon. The shop he stopped at, in a back street off a side street, didn’t look up to much, but I was desperate and ready to smoke anything that was called a Turkish cigarette. Behind the counter I found a fat, middle-aged man reading a book. He gave me something that would do, took my money, and called me sir. But he was no more a tobacconist than I am. ‘Tobacconists may do a lot of funny things, but they don’t read the _Agamemnon_ of Æschylus in the original Greek, which is what this blighter was doing. Nor do they have manicured nails and an Oxford intonation—his attempt at a Cockney accent was one of the most pathetic failures I’ve ever met. However, that’s not the point. The point is that on the counter was a small pile of copies of the current number of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_. The number consisted of sixteen pages, and they were very small pages, and the price was one pound, but I did not hesitate. I bought my copy, and I have it in my pocket now. I’ll hand it up to our chairman. I’ve had a glance at it myself, and I’m inclined to agree with that Museum johnnie. It’s got nothing to do with pigs. It’s mostly poetry and the rest is foolishness. It beats me altogether.’ The chairman examined the copy of the paper which had been handed to him. ‘There is no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘This is a copy of the current issue, and Mr Feldane assures us that he bought it. No other claim is put forward. The club’s cheque for one hundred and ten pounds will therefore be drawn to the order of Mr Feldane. Has any member anything to add?’ ‘I have,’ said Mr Matthews. ‘The whole thing wants clearing up, and I hope our chairman will clear it. Is our problem-setter really a lunatic? What is he doing with this weird paper of his? What’s the Impersonation Society? Who was the over-educated tobacconist? We’d like the whole story.’ And to this there was general assent.