Eighteen minutes into Giles’s and Trevor’s trip for high tea with Felicity and Nigella at the Chancery Buttery near Vauxhall Mews, a lorry blocks their way for seven minutes in order to unload its bangers and kidneys at the Fox and Hound. Its driver gestures obsequiously.

“Uncouth villain!” murmurs Giles as they dawdle with engine idling.
“Indeed,” breathes Trevor, and discharges a cocked eyebrow at the lout.

Question: Giles’s monthly allowance is 4,000 pounds. He intends to ask Felicity’s hand in marriage on his twentieth birthday. That would give him her fortune straightaway. Posit what intelligence you would require, if you were a person of distinction, in order to estimate how many multiples of his pre-inheritance income, annualized, the lad would forfeit should Felicity spurn him.

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)