Norman continued with his viewing, and with his musing also. It was a private and personal kind of musing. And it ran in this fashion: perhaps, Norman’s musing went, going outright for The Big Figure was overly ambitious. It was not so much that he lacked the confidence to go for The Big Figure – far from it, Norman had every confidence in what he might personally achieve. All things were possible, to Norman’s mind. All things could be achieved if he, Norman, put his, Norman’s, mind to these things. That others thought him a dreamer did not enter into it. People were always saying that this can’t be done, and that can’t be done, and that to achieve big ends required vast organisations with vaster budgets. Norman pooh-poohed such narrow-mindedness.

But perhaps he should take things a bit at a time on this particular project, because it was, after all, a very BIG project. And if he did manage to come up with The Big Figure before anyone else did and could patent it, it would put him in a very powerful position. A kind of King of the World position, The Big Figure giving its discoverer all but limitless power, assuming that it did actually exist and that it was actually possible to discover it. And then actually do something with it.

Norman ceased his musing; such musing was not helpful. Such musing inspired doubt. Better just to get on with the project, find The Big Figure and then cock a snoot to the lads at The Flying Swan who had doubted his ability to do so.

Norman consulted the manual once more. “Oh, I see,” said Norman. “It’s a computer program, loading itself up.” Pleased that he could at least understand the basic concept of what was going on, Norman left the computer to be going on with whatever it was going on with and went off to make himself a mug of tea.

He returned, tea mug in hand, to discover that the computer had done whatever it wanted to do and now awaited his instructions.

“All right,” said Norman, “let’s see what you can do.” And he began to type: If one man can dig a hole six foot deep and three foot square in two and a half hours, how many men would it take to make fifteen such holes in forty-five minutes?

Norman shook his head. Surely that was too easy for a calculating machine. Multiply this figure by the area of a lean-to shed and the angle of a ship upon the horizon.

“No,” said Norman. “I won’t know whether it gets the answer right or not. There has to be a way of testing this machine’s abilities. Oh, what’s this?”

The computer screen now lit up with the words “TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION: TESLA BROADCAST POWER SYSTEM”.

“I never asked for that,” said Norman. “I wonder what that might be.” There was a key marked “ENTER” upon the keyboard and Norman gave this a tap. Figures and diagrams and tracts of printed text now appeared upon the screen. Norman read the printed text and Norman’s eyebrows rose.

“Tell me,” said Norman, “that this isn’t what it appears to be.” But there was no one present to tell Norman otherwise.

“It’s a plan for a device,” said Norman, “that can broadcast electricity on a radio frequency, without cables. But no such device exists, surely – or ever has existed.”

Norman now jiggled the little brass mouse about, scrolling words and diagrams and technical bits and bobs up the screen. “Patented in eighteen sixty-two,” read Norman. “Patent, the property of Charles Babbage and Nikola Tesla. Babbage! And this is a Babbage computer. A Victorian computer. This can’t be right. Although …” Norman cast his inventor’s eye over the diagrams and technical bits and bobs. “This Broadcast Power System looks as if it might actually work – it’s really a very simple system. But I’m sure there’s no record of this. There’s never been ‘broadcast electricity’. Something like that would revolutionise everything.” Norman scrolled on. Plans appeared for electric automobiles that ran without batteries, drawing their locomotive power from broadcast electricity received upon radio waves. And electric airships. And flying hansom cabs. And automata.

“Oh my goodness,” said Norman. “The Motherlode. The works of Victorian inventors that somehow were never brought to fruition. The work of unrecognised geniuses – much like myself, in fact. And all this has lain locked away for nearly a century, waiting …” Norman paused. “Waiting for me,” he continued.

The training session had reached its conclusion, and there had been no fatalities. No heart attacks, no mental breakdowns, very little in the way of swearing and no one so badly bruised as to need assistance when leaving the field of play.

“You’ve all done very well,” Jim told them. “You can all take a shower, if you fancy that kind of thing, and then join myself and Mr Omally in The Stripes Bar. The first pint is on me.”

As there were no shower enthusiasts, Jim led the sweaty team off to the bar.

“I think that all went rather well,” said Jim when he had acquainted himself with a pint. “What do you think, John?”

“It’s undoubtedly a new approach.” Omally settled himself on to an uncomfortable chair and supped upon his second-rate ale. “I’m even looking forward to Saturday. I can’t wait to see what Penge makes of it.”

“Don’t forget that you’re in charge of hiring the coach,” Jim told him.

“I’ll have a word with Big Bob Charker who runs the Historic Tour of Brentford bus. He’ll be grateful for the business and he owes me a favour or two.”

“And the fund-raising to pay for the team’s wages?”

“I have an idea for that. Friday night will be Benefit Night, right here in our personal pub.”

“Tomorrow night is Friday night,” said Jim. “It will surely take powers greater than your own to organise a Benefit Night in a single day.”

“Trust me,” said Omally. “I’m a PA.”

Pints sank and more were ordered.

And paid for by the members of the team.

Omally engaged the conjoined twins in conversation, subtly steering the dialogue towards a particular area of their lives that was of particular interest to himself.

Jim sat chatting to Ernest Muffler, whom John seemed anxious to avoid, for some reason.

“We really can win this,” Jim told him.

Ernest offered Jim a guarded, doubtful glance.

“It’s true,” said Jim. “Powers greater than our own are at work to aid us to victory.”

“Have you ever heard of a thing called a group dynamic?” Ernest asked him.

“Is it one of those Californian things where blokes take their clothes off and hug trees in a forest?” Jim asked him in return.

“No,” said Ernest, now offering Jim another kind of glance.

“No,” said Jim. “I don’t mean that I … I mean, well … no, I don’t know what a group dynamic is.”

“It’s something to do with motivating a bunch of people, getting them all to work together for a common goal, that kind of thing.”

“That’s the kind of thing I’m trying to do,” said Jim.

“Well, you’ll have a hard time doing it with this bunch,” said Ernest. “They’ll do what you tell them, to some extent, especially as you’re actually going to pay them, but you can’t really trust them. They’re all up to something.”

“Everybody seems to be.” Jim took further sup upon his substandard pint. “But surely none of them will do anything to sabotage the team’s chances of success.”

“I’m sure they’ll all try their hardest to win if they all actually turn up for the game. I did hear you say something about a Benefit Night tomorrow evening to raise money for our wages.”

“You can consider your wages paid,” said Jim, all but finishing his substandard pint.

“And I appreciate that. But if you have a Benefit Night for the team tomorrow evening, the team will be expected to attend. It would be impolite not to. So they’ll all get pissed and have hangovers on Saturday morning.”