‘I’ve no objection,’ said Lord Herngill. ‘Willy Bunting has empowered me to tell you anything I like about him, including the truth. The fact is that in this problem the members of this club have come up against another organisation, the Impersonation Society, which is one of Bunting’s curious inventions. ‘I first knew him as an undergraduate. I thought a good deal of his ability both as a poet and as an amateur actor. He was also no end of a lark. He was not a lunatic, but he had endless eccentricities. He had no ambitions, a contempt for public opinion, and a determination to do just as he liked. He was sent down for impersonating one of the proctors. He was beautifully made up, and looked exactly like that proctor, but he had the misfortune to meet the original in Trumpington Street. ‘This disaster did not greatly trouble him. He had more money than was good for him and was not intending to take up any profession. He came to London, and shortly afterwards he started the Impersonation Society. His theory was that the ordinary holiday is a mistake, and that what a tired man or woman wants is not only a change of place but a change of personality. In order to get a complete rest you must, for the time being, be somebody else. You must dress and live like the character you have assumed and you must even try to think like him. I am by no means sure that there is not something to be said for the idea. There must be plenty of people who think so, for the membership of the society has increased every year, and includes some of the very last people that you would expect to find in such an organisation. ‘For instance, the man that Jimmy found in the tobacconist’s shop in the Vauxhall neighbourhood, is in reality the head master and proprietor of a large and successful private school. All through term-time he is treated with intense respect. Little boys call him sir, and tremble before him. His assistant masters treat him with a deference which they are probably very far from feeling. He lives in an atmosphere of sickening and insincere flattery, and smoking is strictly prohibited. So in his holiday he becomes a tobacconist’s assistant, smokes all day, goes about in his shirt-sleeves, treats customers with respect, is respected by nobody himself, professes no more virtues than he really has, and thoroughly enjoys it. He says that it keeps him sane. The shop itself is, of course, the property of the society, and a resident manager trains those members who wish to take a holiday there. ‘I should perhaps explain why Sir Charles Bunford was unable to obtain entrance to the rooms of the society. He misinterpreted the legend on the door. The hours are ten to four, but they are from ten at night to four in the morning. I may add that it was once raided by the police, to the intense disappointment of the police and to the great joy of the members, particularly Willy Bunting.