Poor Mrs DesCartes... that woman was a saint! She spent all day sweating over a hot oven cooking vol-au-vents and sausage rolls for the little soiree that she had on the last Friday of every month for the Church Ladies. Being a good Catholic girl she would not let her guests, distinguished though they may be, eat meat on a Friday. So they had to defer the pleasure of having a nibble on  her sausage rolls till after midnight.

On one occasion, His Nibs, standing near the table where the said rolls were on display, waiting in anticipation for the stroke of midnight, happened to see a guest reaching out for one of the meat-filled confections. Bending over, he whispered in his ear, "Pssst! I think they're for a.m.!"

There was silence. Suddenly a ripple of applause broke out on the far side of the room. Swiftly it was taken up round the room till the ripple became a flood, a tidal wave of spontaneous and deafening applause. People threw the windows open and shouted out to the sans-culottes dans la rue "I think they're for a.m! All over the town the cry was taken up..."I think they're for a.m.!"