“A distinguished visitor is brought into a club—­dozen men, say, present, at dinner, long table.  Conversation finally veers around to curiosities and relics.  One of the members present then takes from his pocket what he announces as one of the rarest coins in existence—­passes it around the table.  Coin travels back and forth, every one examining it, and the conversation goes to another topic, say the influence of the automobile on domestic infelicity, or some other such asininely intellectual club topic—­you know?  All at once the owner calls for his coin.

“The coin is nowhere to be found.  Every one looks at every one else.  First they suspect a joke.  Then it becomes serious—­the coin is immensely valuable.  Who has taken it?

“The owner is a gentleman—­does the gentlemanly idiotic thing of course, laughs, says he knows some one is playing a practical joke on him and that the coin will be returned to-morrow.  The others refuse to leave the situation so.  One man proposes that they all submit to a search.  Every one gives his assent until it comes to the stranger.  He refuses, curtly, roughly, without giving any reason.  Uncomfortable silence—­the man is a guest.  No one knows him particularly well—­but still he is a guest.  One member tries to make him understand that no offense is offered, that the suggestion was simply to clear the atmosphere, and all that sort of bally rot, you know.

“‘I refuse to allow my person to be searched,’ says the stranger, very firm, very proud, very English, you know, ’and I refuse to give my reason for my action.’

“Another silence.  The men eye him and then glance at one another.  What’s to be done?  Nothing.  There is etiquette—­that magnificent inflated balloon.  The visitor evidently has the coin—­but he is their guest and etiquette protects him.  Nice situation, eh?

“The table is cleared.  A waiter removes a dish of fruit and there under the ledge of the plate where it had been pushed—­is the coin.  Banal explanation, eh?  Of course.  Solutions always should be.  At once every one in profuse apologies!  Whereupon the visitor rises and says: 

“’Now I can give you the reason for my refusal to be searched.  There are only two known specimens of the coin in existence, and the second happens to be here in my waistcoat pocket.’”

“Of course,” said Quinny with a shrug of his shoulders, “the story is well invented, but the turn to it is very nice—­very nice indeed.”

“I did know the story,” said Steingall, to be disagreeable; “the ending, though, is too obvious to be invented.  The visitor should have had on him not another coin, but something absolutely different, something destructive, say, of a woman’s reputation, and a great tragedy should have been threatened by the casual misplacing of the coin.”

“I have heard the same story told in a dozen different ways,” said Rankin.

“It has happened a hundred times.  It must be continually happening,” said Steingall.