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regular auction sale at Windlesham. And could he have our decision by the end of the week, please. And he named his price, too. I hadn’t got anything to prove it, but I’ll swear it was more than he’d paid for ’em when they were new. And anyhow, he knew damned well we’d lashed out on those new uniforms, and hadn’t got above a pound or two in hand. All the times we’d tried to pay him for those instruments, and he wouldn’t let us!
    I went to see him before I dared tell the lads what he’d done. I did everything but go on my knees to him; I begged him to wait till the end of the month, to give us a bit of time to raise the money. He all but wept down my neck with sympathy, juggled with papers and figures to prove to me that he was as good as bankrupt, and for his poor wife’s sake he couldn’t wait even a week longer. I’ve never been more meek and humble to anybody in my life, but at the end of it all he still owned the instruments, and still wanted his price for ’em, or else! And we still hadn’t got it to give. So I had to tell the boys that night, and a fine row there was.
    â€˜Let me go and negotiate for you,’ says Lije, blowing gently down his double-B, which was his own, and safe as houses. ‘I won’t make no trouble, I’ll just quietly be the death of him. Eb and me,’ he says, ‘we understand each other.’
    â€˜You keep out of it,’ I said, thinking of Nora. ‘I’m conducting this band, and it’s up to me to think of a way round this. What’s more,’ I said, ‘we’ll get our instruments for a lot less than that out of the old robber, or my name’s not Les Parkes.’
    I talked it over with Nora afterwards, and she went with me to Maddingley to see Tom Lowther, who conducted the Maddingley Colliery Band. They’d been our rivals ever since we started up again after the war, and there was supposed to be pretty high feeling between us over the county championship, but it was all part of the game, as you might say, and anyhow Tom Lowther was a good sort, and wouldn’t stand for us being frozen out of the contest that way, it would have spoiled his fun. So we told him all about it. He said it was a dirty trick, all right, but what was he supposed to do about it?
    â€˜Tom,’ I said, ‘if you was to go to him, and say as you’d heard he’d got these instruments for sale, and put it up to him that you’d be glad to have ’em if the price was right, I believe he’d jump at it. He’d be so pleased to think he was putting us out of the running and giving our chief rivals a leg up, that I believe you could even knock the price down considerable. If you let on to hate us enough, he’ll almost give ’em to you. Nora here and me, we’ve put together as much as we can raise,’ I said. ‘I’m betting that from you it’ll be enough. From us he wouldn’t touch it if it was three times as much, he’d have some tale to put us off with. We’ll get it back from the band after we’ve won the trophy.’
    That started him grinning. ‘You’ll never see your money again,’ he says, ‘if you’re relying on getting it back that way. But just to show we ain’t afraid to meet you on equal terms, I’ll see what I can do for you.’
    It’s my belief he enjoyed that job. We didn’t hear any more until the Friday, and then it was another letter to say that Eb Langley had had an offer for the instruments, and much as he regretted it, he couldn’t afford to turn it down unless we were able to say at once that we’d take them off his hands at the terms agreed. If we couldn’t see our way to doing that, would we please deliver them at the Black Horse after the practice, because the prospective purchaser wanted to see them and collect them, if satisfactory, next Monday evening. And we did,