On the following Monday I glanced at The Cake at breakfast-time to make sure, as usual, of her inferiority to my beloved but unremunerative Bun.  I opened on a heading:  ’The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat.’  I read ...  I read that the Geoplanarian Society—­a society devoted to the proposition that the earth is flat—­had held its Annual Banquet and Exercises at Huckley on Saturday, when after convincing addresses, amid scenes of the greatest enthusiasm, Huckley village had decided by an unanimous vote of 438 that the earth was flat.  I do not remember that I breathed again till I had finished the two columns of description that followed.  Only one man could have written them.  They were flawless—­crisp, nervous, austere yet human, poignant, vital, arresting—­most distinctly arresting—­dynamic enough to shift a city—­and quotable by whole sticks at a time.  And there was a leader, a grave and poised leader, which tore me in two with mirth, until I remembered that I had been left out—­infamously and unjustifiably dropped.  I went to Ollyett’s rooms.  He was breakfasting, and, to do him justice, looked conscience-stricken.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he began.  ’It was Bat Masquerier.  I swear I would have asked you to come if—­’

‘Never mind that,’ I said.  ’It’s the best bit of work you’ve ever done or will do.  Did any of it happen?’

‘Happen?  Heavens!  D’you think even I could have invented it?’

‘Is it exclusive to The Cake?’ I cried.

‘It cost Bat Masquerier two thousand,’ Ollyett replied.  ’D’you think he’d let any one else in on that?  But I give you my sacred word I knew nothing about it till he asked me to come down and cover it.  He had Huckley posted in three colours, “The Geoplanarians’ Annual Banquet and Exercises.”  Yes, he invented “Geoplanarians.”  He wanted Huckley to think it meant aeroplanes.  Yes, I know that there is a real Society that thinks the world’s flat—­they ought to be grateful for the lift—­but Bat made his own.  He did!  He created the whole show, I tell you.  He swept out half his Halls for the job.  Think of that—­on a Saturday!  They—­we went down in motor char-a-bancs—­three of ’em—­one pink, one primrose, and one forget-me-not blue—­twenty people in each one and “The Earth is Flat” on each side and across the back.  I went with Teddy Rickets and Lafone from the Trefoil, and both the Silhouette Sisters, and—­wait a minute!—­the Crossleigh Trio.  You know the Every-Day Dramas Trio at the Jocunda—­Ada Crossleigh, “Bunt” Crossleigh, and little Victorine?  Them.  And there was Hoke Ramsden, the lightning-change chap in Morgiana and Drexel—­and there was Billy Turpeen.  Yes, you know him!  The North London Star.  “I’m the Referee that got himself disliked at Blackheath.” That chap!  And there was Mackaye—­that one-eyed Scotch fellow that all Glasgow is crazy about.  Talk of subordinating yourself for Art’s sake!