No. III.
The Free Meal Problem
Probably no member of the Problem Club enjoyed his evening of chairmanship more than Mr Quillian, K.C., who occupied the chair at the forty-fifth meeting. He liked the position of authority, and he liked the opportunity to exercise the nicety and precision of his legal mind. In the Free Meal Problem, on which he was to adjudicate, the ingenious head-waiter Leonard had made the following demand:—
‘It is required within the space of twenty-four consecutive hours to be the guest of one person at breakfast, of another at luncheon, and of a third at dinner, the host being in each case a person whom the competitor has not to his knowledge seen, and with whom he has held no communication, previous to the sunrise preceding the meal. No direct request for a meal may be made, and no remuneration may be given in return for any meal.’
‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Mr Quillian, when he had read this out, ‘this is a problem where the question of definition may arise. For instance, a child in a railway carriage offers a traveller a small piece of deteriorated bun. We will suppose that the hour is eight in the morning and that the traveller has not partaken of food since the previous midnight. In the improbable event of his consuming the—er—proffered dainty, he has undoubtedly broken his fast. But can he be said to have breakfasted? All I can say is that if the question of definition should arise to-night I will do my best to deal with it on common-sense lines, accurately but without pedantry.’
The chairman then called upon Mr Wildersley, A.R.A., to give his experiences.
Wildersley was a man of middle age who, like many artists, retained something of the child in his composition. He was a big, good-tempered man of rather rugged appearance. The cigars provided by the club, good though they were, had no attraction for him. He was a pipe-smoker, and between his sentences he contrived to keep his pipe alight.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I mayn’t be a winner, but I can’t be far out. I’ll tell you how I set about it. You may have noticed that chaps in the country with little places—three or four acres—are often very keen about them. In fact, the smaller the place the keener they are. My frame-maker, who lives near Harrow, used to spend most of his Sunday afternoon sitting behind a curtain with the window open, listening to what passers-by had to say about the godetias in his front garden. His daughter sometimes sits for me, and she told me that if the compliments on the garden came in nicely it put him in such a good temper that he used to let the family off church in the evening. I decided to work on the pride that the owner or tenant has in his place. I went down to the outer suburban belt—the part that they call the real country—and put up at an hotel. Then bright and early one morning I started out with my painting contraptions. I very soon spotted a place that I knew must be picturesque, because it had got some clipped yews and a sun-dial; besides, as the gate informed me, it was called the Dream House, and that proved it. So in I went, pitched my easel half-way up the drive, and got to work. An old gardener came up and asked me if I knew that I was trespassing. So I gave him a shilling, my card, and my apologies. I told him to keep the shilling and to deliver the card and apologies to his master as soon as that gentleman got down. That seemed to meet the case. In half an hour I had knocked off something showy, and then down the drive towards me came the owner, all smiles and Norfolk jacket, with a Cocker spaniel trailing behind him. I gave him the sketch, and he was as pleased as Punch about it. He took me round the garden to point out other picturesque spots, and then brought me into the house to introduce me to his family. Nice people, very. Almost before I knew it I was breakfasting with them, and being hungry I was pleased to find that they took breakfast seriously. They’d have kept me there all day if I could have stopped, but the business of this problem required me to move on.
‘At half-past twelve I played the same trick again six miles up the road. Once more it worked perfectly. My hostess was an old lady of the almost extinct type that knows how to live. Everything about the place was just exactly. The luncheon was just exactly. And she gave me a very fine old Amontillado—a wine that we don’t see enough of nowadays. I can’t say whether it was the sherry or the success, but when I left I felt that I had got the club’s cheque for one hundred and ten pounds in my pocket and was listening to the chairman’s kindly words of congratulation. My mistake, of course. Begin well, but not too well. If you begin too well, mistrust it.
‘About seven that evening I was painting a garden which was really rather good in that light. (I’d sent in my card and got permission.) As I was finishing the job and rather wrapped up in it I heard a Scotch accent behind me, saying that the sketch was “no bad” and “verra like.” He and I discussed the comparative merits of painting and photography. For accuracy he “prefaired the photograph, but then it didna give the colours.” As before, I presented the sketch, and I still think that he was pleased with it. He asked me to sign it, so as to prove to his friends that he “wasna lying” when he said that it was by a professed painter, and admitted that he would not grudge the money it would cost for framing and glazing. He then said he made no doubt I would be hurrying home for my dinner, and he would wish me good-evening. And so, in a manner of speaking, I fell at the last hurdle. Still, I suppose I score the breakfast and luncheon.’
The Hon. James Feldane addressed the chairman:—
‘I’d like your ruling on that point, sir. And it’s quite impartial, because I am not competing myself this time.’
‘Not competing?’ said the chairman. ‘Might I ask what stopped you? Hitherto you have been one of the keenest and most sporting of our members, in spite of your air of—er—lassitude.’
‘What stopped me,’ said Jimmy simply, ‘was breakfast. Breakfast is bad enough at any time, especially if you’ve been rather late and busy the night before. But to breakfast with an absolute stranger on chance food, and to go out and dig for the invitation first—well, it was unthinkable. I’m sorry to spoil old Wildersley’s score, and if he’d bunged me one of his sketches instead of chucking them about the suburbs I might have been able to stifle the voice of conscience. As it is, I feel bound to raise the objection that he gave remuneration for the breakfast and luncheon—to wit, two sketches.’
‘The gift of the sketches was precedent to the meals and was unconditional, as we see by the fact that the third sketch produced no meal. The sketches were a lure, and the use of a lure is not prohibited. They were not remuneration given in return for a meal. I should not even say that the meals were remuneration for the sketches; they were merely an expression of gratitude. Mr Feldane’s objection is disallowed.’
That habitual non-starter Mr Harding Pope, M.P., was now asked if he had made his choice between competition or resignation.
‘I have competed, of course. But I have only the most dismal of failures to record. I was down at my constituency, and I picked out three new residents on whom I had a plausible excuse for calling. I ’phoned the first to ask if he could see me at nine, apologising for the earliness of the hour. He said that the time suited him very well, and that, as a matter of fact, he always breakfasted at seven, so as to begin work early. The man whom I called on at lunch-time could only give me ten minutes, he said, as he was lunching out. The third did ask me to dinner, but not on that day. And probably all three have put me down as a man who calls at tactless and inconvenient times. I can only say that I am ready to suffer far worse things for the privilege of retaining my membership.’
Sir Charles Bunford had perhaps shown rather more strategy, but had only one degree less of failure to report. He had obtained letters of introduction to three noted food-cranks, all of them ardent proselytisers. To the first he represented himself as suffering from a list of symptoms. Sir Charles had memorised them carefully from the advertisement of a patent pill. He said that he was sorry to call at so early an hour, but after a night of suffering he had determined that he would begin on a new system of diet at once.
‘For instance,’ he said, ‘what ought I to have for breakfast this morning? What do you have yourself?’
The food-crank said that he would not only tell him; he would ask him to share his simple but healthful fare.
At this point in his narrative the chairman interposed.
‘This is a case where the question of definition may arise. I must ask you to tell us, Sir Charles, what the food-crank gave you for breakfast.’
‘It was not so much breakfast as a premature dessert with a hospital flavour to it. It consisted of uncooked fruit and lessons in the difficult art of mastication. With that we drank a special sort of coffee, from which all deleterious matter, including the taste of coffee, had been entirely removed. But the question of definition need not worry you, as I can’t claim to have won. The second food-crank, whom I visited at lunch-time, told me that his chief secret was never to eat in the middle of the day. The third, whom I tackled in the evening, was so ascetic in his conversation and so extremely anxious to keep me out of his dining-room, that I formed a suspicion, perhaps unworthy, that the man’s practice differed somewhat from his preaching. So I’ve failed, but it was quite an amusing day.’
That great epicure, Mr Matthews, had not competed, and gave his reasons with a solemnity that contrasted with his usual cheeriness.
‘Thank Heaven,’ he said, ‘I have a sophisticated appetite! Thank Heaven again I have an over-educated palate! Starvation for twenty-four hours I might have possibly faced. But the horrors of casual hospitality were more than I could risk.’
‘Ah, well,’ said the chairman, ‘I must turn to Mr Pusely-Smythe, who is acting as secretary for us to-night. I presume he has added one more to his list of triumphs.’
‘The pangs of failure,’ said that saturnine gentleman, ‘are increased by the jeers of the learned chairman. I ought to have won. I claim to have won. But I confess that it will not surprise me if I am reduced to an equality with my artist friend. I shall have a melancholy pleasure in sharing the prize with him. He tried to work upon gratitude, and so did I. The particular brand of gratitude that I decided to exploit for my purpose was the gratitude that a woman feels for the return of her lost pet dog. It seems to vary inversely as the value of the dog, but it is always great.
‘You will perhaps remember that about a year ago Leonard set us a peculiarly sinful problem, which he styled the Substitution Problem, and that in the complicated and unjustifiable operations by which I succeeded in winning the prize I made the acquaintance of James Tigg, and did him a good turn. Now James, known to his intimate friends as “Kidney,” is by profession a French polisher, but does not practice, and his favourite occupation is the appropriation of dogs, his gifts in that direction amounting almost to genius.
‘I sent for James. I told him that I thought it likely that three ladies, living in different suburbs, would lose their pet dogs and that I should know where to find them, and should be enabled by the address on the dog-collar to return each of the little darlings to its owner. At the same time I put five golden sovereigns on the table.
‘ “Likely?” said James. “It’s a ruddy certainty.” He then picked up the coins in an absent-minded way and instructed me as to details.
‘Two days later, at an early hour in the morning, I called on Lady Pingle at her house at Epsom with her ladyship’s alleged Pekingese under my arm. I told her how I had found the poor little thing wandering on Wimbledon Common late the night before almost in a state of collapse, had given it food and shelter, and had taken the earliest opportunity to relieve her anxiety by its return.
‘Her gratitude was almost frantic. She kissed the dog ardently, and at one moment I was almost afraid she was going to kiss me too. She did not do that, but she did insist on my breakfasting with her, and I accepted. And let me tell that over-educated sybarite Matthews, with his sneers at casual hospitality, that he himself never breakfasted better.
‘I lunched with Mrs Hastonbury at her residence at Leatherhead. In this way she showed her gratitude for the return of “Bimby”—a chocolate-coloured Pom with a short temper. But I must confess that she was not nearly as quick off the mark as Lady Pingle. I had to inquire about hotels in the neighbourhood before she saw which way her duty lay.
‘The third dog that I had to deliver, a mouldy little pug, belonged to the wife of a curate living much nearer home. She was grateful and she was hospitable. She said that they never dined but that they were just sitting down to high tea, and she hoped I would join them. It was an evening meal substituted for dinner, and I contend that I am entitled to count it as dinner.’
‘Kindly tell us what you had,’ said the chairman.
‘What? The internal evidence? Certainly. I had cocoa, scrambled eggs, and seed-cake. And I hope you will take a lenient view of it.’
‘Your hostess herself maintained that it was not dinner, and the internal evidence, as you call it, entirely supports her view. Your career of crime will only give you a score of two. The high tea is disallowed. I will now call upon Major Byles.’
‘The sacrifice that I made to luck on the occasion of our last competition,’ said Major Byles, ‘has brought me success at last. I claim to be a winner, and await your decision with confidence. It happened that two of my friends both wanted a furnished house at Brightgate for the winter, and did not want the bother of going down to make their selection. I saw my chance at once. I might never have thought of it, but I didn’t miss it when it was shoved at me. I said at once that I was thinking of running down to Brightgate for a day or two, and that it always interested me to look over houses. They told me their requirements and let me take on the job for them.
‘The house-agent at Brightgate had only six houses on his books that were at all suitable. He gave me orders to view, and I started business at eight one morning. I started badly.
‘At the first house a proud but pretty parlour-maid told me that it was not usual to show furnished houses at that hour, but I could call again at eleven. At the second house there was only a caretaker. That left me with, so to speak, four cartridges and three birds to kill. I hurried on to the third house, which was half a mile away. By a bit of luck I met the owner on the doorstep, and told him my alleged business.
‘ “You’re very early,” he said. “Why, we haven’t had breakfast yet.”
‘ “No more have I,” I said. “But last year I lost a good house through being too late, and I thought I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.”
‘He was a genial old chap. He said the best thing I could do was to come in and breakfast with him, and by the time I had finished the servants would have got the bedrooms tidied up. I did my best to accept with decent hesitation.
‘At lunch-time I tried the fourth house on my list and struck another caretaker. I couldn’t afford another miss. I got lunch at the fifth house, but I had to be no end complimentary before I could get them up to the point. In fact, it wasn’t till I told the woman that her pimply-faced son was a fine upstanding young fellow that she decided to order the extra chop.
‘But at the sixth house I had no trouble about dinner. The owner turned out to be a friend of a friend of mine. He fetched up a bottle of the ’87 in my honour and insisted on my stopping the night.
‘They were all pukka meals, and all the conditions were observed. Am I a winner, Mr Chairman?’
‘Certainly. Does anybody else claim to be a winner?’
‘I do,’ said Dr Alden. ‘The day before yesterday a doctor rang me up and asked me to see a patient of his—a woman with a wealthy, devoted, and very nervous husband. That was at eight in the morning. My car happened to be at the door, and it suited me to go right away. I saw the patient, was able to reassure the husband, and had breakfast with him. Later in the morning a man was introduced to me who was interested in old glass and had heard of me as a collector. He was very keen that I should lunch with him and see what he had got. He was a pleasant chap and I accepted. When I got back, a doctor, quite an old pal of mine, said that he was going to take me to dine that night with a man I had never seen before. It seemed that the stranger had staying with him for one night a French specialist in my own line. The Frenchman was anxious to meet me, and his host was anxious to please him. So he had tried to arrange it through a mutual friend. I was myself keen to meet that Frenchman, and so he succeeded.
‘Of course, I didn’t arrange all this—couldn’t have arranged it. As a matter of fact, I had never intended to compete this time. But destiny decided to take a hand in this competition. I claim to be a winner.’
‘An interesting point,’ said the chairman. ‘Can a man be said to win who has never competed? I shall decide in Dr Alden’s favour. Leonard says nothing of intention. He only demands certain facts. And these facts the doctor by an amazing stroke of luck has been able to provide. The prize of one hundred and ten pounds will be divided equally between him and Major Byles, unless there is any further claim.’
No further claim was forthcoming. The chairman then announced that Mr Matthews would preside at the next meeting, and read out the problem set for the following month, called ‘The Win-and-Lose Problem,’ and there was a general feeling that it would take some doing.