“I told him I hadn’t, and then he says that it came to him by post that morning, wrapped up in a bit of blank paper. ‘I made sure it was one of your jokes, Sam,’ he says. I picked up the counter and looked at it. On one side it had the figure II drawn on it in red ink. ‘What does it mean?’ I said. ‘That’s just what I want to know,’ says Ben. ‘You shove it in your pocket, Sam, you’re better at finding out that sort of thing than I am.’ So I shoved it in my pocket, and here it is.”

Mr. Ludgrove took the counter which the tobacconist handed him and looked at it curiously. It was just as Mr. Copperdock had described it, a white bone counter, about the size of a halfpenny, with the Roman numeral II , carefully traced upon it in red ink.