I always try to be helpful. After a life time doing this I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s all been worthwhile. Let me give you an example.

I was helping a patron of mine, Madam Halwhistle, run a soiree. At one point I thought the whole event was going to implode because she was in a bad mood with her husband. I tentatively enquired as to what the problem was. It appeared that Master Halwhistle provided labour to the various wharves. Obviously he never did anything so vulgar as to hump bags of grain himself, but he hired foremen and each would put together a gang. Master Halwhistle would then be approached by ship owners who needed a boat unloading and he would have a gang waiting on the wharf as the boat tied up. All in all an efficient system, the ship owners liked it because they knew there…