“It’s all very well for you to laugh, but neither you nor any other living soul knows what I do. Now just you listen, and see if I’m not right. Last Wednesday, I was in the Cambridge Arms in the evening, same as I almost always am. In comes old Ben Colburn, and comes straight over to me. He puts his hand in his pocket, and slaps an ordinary bone counter down on the table in front of me. ‘Now then, Sam, what’s the meaning of this little joke?’ he says.

“I looks at the counter and I looks at him. ‘What do you mean, what’s the joke?’ I says.

“Why, didn’t you send me this?” he says, suspicious like.