No. X.
The Threepenny Problem
‘Childs-play,’ said Major Byles, ‘that’s what this problem is. It is required to offer a half-crown for a threepenny bus-fare, and to receive the change wholly in threepenny-bits. And you’re not allowed to give the conductor anything or promise him anything as an inducement to let you have the nine threepennies. It’s my belief that you’d only have to ask in a civil way, and any conductor would do it for you. A more obliging set of men than the London bus-conductors couldn’t be found, except, perhaps, the London police. I don’t call it a problem at all. You’ll all win, of course, and that will mean a comfortable tenner for every member of the club except myself—just because I’m stuck up here in the chair. It’s scandalous.’ He snipped the end of a cigar ferociously, and lit it as if he took pleasure in its destruction—which, indeed, may have been the case. ‘However, I must do my duty, and I’ll call on my reverend friend, Mr Cunliffe, to tell us what he has done about it.’
‘My story is a sad one,’ said the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe. ‘It leads me to believe that our chairman has over-estimated the amiability of the conductors and underestimated the difficulty of the problem. I gave a half-crown for a threepenny fare, and told the man that it would be a great kindness if he could let me have my change in threepenny pieces. He never said a word, but handed me a florin and three coppers.
‘ “Did you hear what I asked you?” I said to him.
‘ “Oh, yes,” he said, “I heard. If you want all them threepennies, you’d better get them out of the blanky offertory-bag next Sunday!” ’
‘Extraordinary,’ said the chairman. ‘Something must have occurred to ruffle the man’s temper. Did you find any difficulty, Bunford?’
‘I failed absolutely,’ said Sir Charles Bunford. ‘No doubt I made a mistake in putting my request during the busy hour of the morning. The conductor looked resigned but sardonic.
‘ “Want it all in threepennies, do you?” he said. “Would you like them of any particular year?”
‘I said that the date was immaterial. Any year would do.
‘ “That’s all right,” he said. “Then you can wait for next year’s.” And he gave me a shilling, a sixpence, and ninepence in what is generally described at the inquest as bronze.’
‘Of course,’ said the chairman, ‘it was a mistake to bother the man when he was busy. And a little tact is wanted. If I’d been in for this competition myself I shouldn’t just have asked for my change in threepennies, I should have given some plausible reason for wanting it.’
‘With great respect, sir,’ said Mr Quillian, ‘I must differ from you. I had the same idea and tried it. I told the conductor that I had a bet that I would get my change entirely in threepennies. I thought it would appeal to his sporting instinct. All he said was, “You’ve lost, then,” and gave me the change without as much as one threepenny in it. Seemed rather pleased about it, too.’
‘I’d much the same experience,’ said Dr Alden. ‘As I gave the man my half-crown I mentioned that I was a collector of threepenny bits, and asked him if he could help me. He gave me two shillings and three pennies.
‘ “Well,” he said, “if you like to step off at the Bank of England and ask the Chief Cashier to give you threepennies for that little lot, you can mention my name.” ’
‘It’s quite possible,’ said the chairman, ‘that those conductors had not got the threepennies to give you. I go for days sometimes without as much as seeing a threepenny bit. It really looks as if the problem presented more difficulties than I had at first supposed. Did you manage to surmount them, Mr Matthews?’
‘Can’t say I did, though I took a lot of trouble about it. There’s no two ways about it—if you put an unreasonable request to a complete stranger, whether he’s a bus-conductor or anything else, you’re likely to be sat on and not to get what you want either. I picked a bus in the slack time, running nearly empty, with a good-natured-looking conductor. I chatted with him for five minutes, and got him friendly disposed towards me, before I even mentioned threepennies. Then I asked him if he got many of them. He said he took enough of them to fill a pint-pot some days and he wished he didn’t. They were finicky things to handle and easy dropped. Well, that was a very good start. I gave him a half-crown for my threepenny ticket and told him that I would be glad to take as many threepenny bits off his hands as he liked to give me. Said I wanted them for a young nephew of mine. The man was quite willing, and if anybody had offered me twenty pounds just then for my chance of winning the prize to-night I’d have refused it. If anybody would give me twenty pence for the same chance at the present moment I’d jump at it. The trouble came in just as the chairman has indicated. The man looked through his silver and did his best for me, but one solitary threepenny was all he could raise. I got that one, of course, but one is not nine. It was just rotten bad luck. He said that nineteen days in twenty he could have given me a dozen of them, but he supposed it had to happen so.’
‘You call that bad luck?’ said the Hon. James Feldane gloomily. ‘Not half as bitter as mine.’
‘We’ll have the story of your failure, Jimmy,’ said the chairman.
‘Failure’s nothing. I’ve failed before and shall do again. It’s what happened afterwards that worries me. All the same, I don’t know that I should have failed if I had simply trusted to my own judgment, but the woman looked so smart and brainy that I let myself be influenced, though she was really talking clotted nonsense.’
‘You’re getting on too quickly,’ said the chairman. ‘To what woman do you refer?’
‘How should I know? I haven’t an idea what her name is. She was one of a pack of hens that I found cackling in my sister’s drawing-room. They were discussing their maids and how to manage them, same as women have always done since the year one. The brainy-looking one said that when she had a reasonable order to give a maid, she always put it in the form of a request; but if she had an unreasonable request to make to a maid, she always put it in the form of an order. She said that this always bluffed the maid out. I thought there might be something in that bit of wisdom. If you give an order in an ordinary way, as if it were a matter of course, it may get taken in that spirit. Anyway, I thought I’d try it with the bus-conductor. I gave him my half-crown, and said in my light and casual way. “Threepenny ticket. And give me my change in threepenny bits.”
‘He didn’t say anything. He just glared at me. If he had said anything it would probably have scorched the top off the bus. He gave me my change—with never a threepenny bit in it—and then glared some more. He’d got rather a good glare. Broke up my nerves, anyhow. At the next corner I hopped off.
‘Now mark the sequel. A little later I owed a taxi eightpence, gave the man a half-crown and waited for my change. “Sorry, sir,” said the man, “but I shall have to give you six threepenny bits. I’ve got no other silver.”
‘And that’s the way things happen. When you want a thing you can’t get it, and when you don’t want it it’s chucked at you.’
‘Well, really,’ said the chairman, without a blush, ‘as I foresaw, this turns out to be a very difficult problem. No interruptions, please. I know that I did not actually say that it was very difficult, but it was in my mind. It looked easy, as I pointed out in my opening remarks, but nobody knows better than I do that appearances are often deceptive. I shall call upon our great expert and prize-winner, Mr Pusely-Smythe. I am confident that he will have realised the difficulties and taken his measures accordingly.’
Mr Pusely-Smythe smiled grimly and sardonically. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, ‘for your kind words. I do not want to brag, but I gave this problem my very earnest consideration, and I do think that I realised some at least of the difficulties before me. I saw, firstly, that it was possible and even probable that the conductor might not have nine threepenny-bits to give me. Now some company-promoters have found out that the best way to get gold out of a gold-mine is to start by putting a little gold into it. I adopted that principle. I selected a certain bus on a certain route. I arranged that on the journey just before I made my appearance no fewer than twelve passengers would pay their fares with threepenny-bits. It only required a little organisation. If you tell a human boy or even a human girl to take your threepenny bit, pay a penny bus fare with it, and keep the change, you get willing service without any troublesome demand for explanations. Secondly, I had to have a story to tell the conductor that would induce him to oblige me. I was prepared to tell him that a friend had promised me that if I could collect a thousand threepenny-bits for the London Hospital, he would add double that amount to it.
‘I notice, sir, an unworthy expression of suspicion on the face of my learned friend Mr Quillian. My story for the conductor was not only plausible—it was actually true. I was the man who had made that promise to myself. (If I am not my own friend, who is?) Further, I was so absolutely certain of success that I remitted the sum in question, thirty-two pounds ten shillings, to the hospital and have a receipt for it. When I deducted the thirty-two pounds ten shillings expenditure from the hundred and ten pounds prize, I calculated that it would still leave a living wage for myself. Well, that was the position. I saw that there were two main difficulties in this problem, and I had arranged to meet both of them.’
‘Quite so,’ said the chairman. ‘As I’ve always said, these things need to be worked out in a clear-minded and systematic way. And the result was all right?’
Pusely-Smythe’s smile was more sardonic than ever. ‘Much depends on the point of view; it was all right from some points of view. Punctually at the time I had fixed I took my seat on the top of the bus I had selected. About a minute later the conductor came up to collect the fares. I felt for my half-crown. I had not got any half-crown. I had no money on me whatever. I had inadvertently left my money at home. There was nobody on the bus to whom I could apply for temporary assistance. Well, there was no help for it. The conductor was weary, but firm. He told me to hop off the bus and not to try it on again. I hopped. It may have been all right from the point of view of the other competitors, but from my own point of view it was less satisfactory. And it only shows, as we all know, that you may lose your game by missing a perfectly easy shot.’
Mr Wildersley, A.R.A., had demanded threepennies from a conductor on the ground that he was collecting them. The conductor had replied that he was there to take the fares, not to supply private museums. Mr Austin had met a most obliging conductor, who, however, had no threepennies in his possession. Lord Herngill and Mr Hesseltine had only contemptuous refusals to record.
This, of course, happened before the war. In times when the gentler, kindlier, and more refined sex has charge of our public vehicles, the problem might prove easy of solution.
‘Well,’ the chairman began, ‘it looks as if the whole lot of you duffers had failed.’ Here the secretary, Lord Herngill, whispered a few warning words in his ear, and the chairman nodded assent.
‘Yes,’ he resumed, ‘it may look to you duffers as if the whole lot of you had failed, but of course that would be wrong. Nobody has succeeded in getting nine threepennies in change. But in that case the nearest approximation to that number wins. Mr Matthews got one threepenny, and conformed to the conditions. Nobody else even got one. Therefore I declare Mr Matthews to be the winner, and the club cheque for one hundred and ten pounds will be drawn to his order.’
Jimmy Feldane confided his private sorrows to his friend Hesseltine. ‘I don’t mind old Matthews winning. He’s a genial old bird, and what he don’t know about the noble art of dining ain’t worth worrying over. But there is just one thing that makes me want to kick myself round and round this room till I get giddy. When Matthews told us his yarn, he said he’d take twenty pence for his chance of the prize. I ought to have been on to it in a flash, if not sooner. One-and-eight for a sporting chance of a hundred and ten pounds is good enough. The more I think of it, the more I see that I ought not to be allowed out except in charge of a nursemaid.’
‘Oh, we all missed that chance,’ said Hesseltine. ‘Maybe a little drink might do us some good.’
While they were taking the medicine indicated, the chairman read out the problem which was to employ them during the following month. The fantastic editor of The Pig-Keepers’ Friend had entitled it, ‘The Q-Loan Problem,’ and its terms were as follows:—
‘It is required in three days to borrow as many things as possible, the name of each thing to begin with the letter Q. Nothing counts for the competition if its name is on the list of more than one member. No money may be given or promised in respect of any loan.’
‘And to-morrow morning, bright and early,’ said Jimmy, ‘I’m off to the Zoo in a taxi to see if I can’t borrow their quagga.’