“You have,” said the stranger, “a surpassing virtue.”

“I have no possible use for it,” my poor friend replied.

“Then doubtless you would sell it cheap,” said the stranger.

Something in the man’s manner or appearance made the desolate teller of this mournful tale feel his own inferiority, which probably made him feel acutely shy, so that his mind abased itself as an Oriental does his body in the presence of a superior, or perhaps he was sleepy, or merely a little drunk.  Whatever it was he only mumbled, “O yes,” instead of contradicting so mad a remark.  And the stranger led the way to the room where the telephone was.

“I think you will find my firm will give a good price for it,” he said:  and without more ado he began with a pair of pincers to cut the wire of the telephone and the receiver.  The old waiter who looked after the club they had left shuffling round the other room putting things away for the night.

“Whatever are you doing of?” said my friend.

“This way,” said the stranger.  Along a passage they went and away to the back of the club and there the stranger leaned out of a window and fastened the severed wires to the lightning conductor.  My friend has no doubt of that, a broad ribbon of copper, half an inch wide, perhaps wider, running down from the roof to the earth.

“Hell,” said the stranger with his mouth to the telephone; then silence for a while with his ear to the receiver, leaning out of the window.  And then my friend heard his poor virtue being several times repeated, and then words like Yes and No.

“They offer you three jokes,” said the stranger, “which shall make all who hear them simply die of laughter.”

I think my friend was reluctant then to have anything more to do with it, he wanted to go home; he said he didn’t want jokes.

“They think very highly of your virtue,” I said the stranger.  And at that, odd as it seems, my friend wavered, for logically if they thought highly of the goods they should have paid a higher price.

“O all right,” he said.  The extraordinary document that the agent drew from his pocket ran something like this: 

“I . . . . . in consideration of three new jokes received from Mr.
Montagu-Montague, hereinafter to be called the agent, and warranted to
be as by him stated and described, do assign to him, yield, abrogate
and give up all recognitions, emoluments, perquisites or rewards due
to me Here or Elsewhere on account of the following virtue, to wit and
that is to say . . . . . that all women are to me equally ugly.”  The
last eight words being filled in in ink by Mr. Montagu-Montague.

My poor friend duly signed it.  “These are the jokes,” said the agent.  They were boldly written on three slips of paper.  “They don’t seem very funny,” said the other when he had read them.  “You are immune,” said Mr. Montagu-Montague, “but anyone else who hears them will simply die of laughter:  that we guarantee.”