COMPILED BY
EVANGELINE BARRANCE
ASSISTED BY A BUNCH OF FLOWERS
THE TEST
A STORY
There was once a girl named Philippa Barnes whose father and mother died when she was seventeen. As she was too young to be married and was very rich, she had to have a guardian, and in reply to an advertisement a number of candidates for that position came forward. They were all handsome elderly men of nearly forty, and when Philippa saw them she liked most of them a good deal, but as their references were all perfect she was puzzled how to choose. Being very fond of Shakespeare she had read The Merchant of Venice and she decided that she must devise a test, as Portia did, but as it would be foolish to borrow the idea of the three caskets, which most people know about, she had to invent a new one.
All the applicants for the post of guardian were told to be at her family mansion at ten o’clock in the morning, and when they were assembled Philippa sent for them one by one and told each that he must recount to her some anecdote in which he had taken part with some person of inferior position—such as a bus-conductor or a taxi-driver or a railway porter or a waiter or a char. When they had all finished Philippa made her choice, which fell upon a candidate named Barclay Pole who was not so tall as the others and not so well dressed, although his references were beyond dispute.
“But,” said her old nurse, who had been standing by her side all through the interviews, “why do you choose him when there are all those handsome ones at your disposal?”
“Because,” Philippa said, “he was the only one who when he told the story did not make the other person call him Sir.”