The board meeting had reached the ‘any other business’ stage when Xavier, the elderly finance director, said, “Permission to make a personal statement, chairman?”

“What do I do now?” the chairman asked the company secretary.

“I suppose you had better let him speak, chairman.”

“Go ahead, then,” said the chairman, benignly.

“I hereby tender my resignation with immediate effect,” said Xavier.

All eyes turned on the company secretary, who said, “But you are under contract to give at least one year’s notice of, er -”

Xavier ignored this. “I urge you to let me go at once,” he said. The chairman felt he had to say something. “I wonder, old chap,” he said, “if you could tell us just a little more. I think we are entitled…”

Xavier did not waver. “No disrespect, chairman,” he said, “but the reason is confidential and must remain so. And now I will say goodbye.”

He picked up his briefcase and left the room. On the landing he failed to see the cleaners’ ‘wet surface’ warning and crashed down the marble stairs.

Bearing grapes, the chairman visited him in hospital.

“I still don’t understand,” he said, “why you were in such a hurry to get away. It isn’t as if you’d been fiddling the books – so what was behind the, er, drama?”

Xavier sighed and went into a story about ‘a lovely lady’ and how they were going to go away together and surely he deserved some happiness…

The chairman smiled. “And what does your wife think about all this, old chap?” he asked, helping himself to a grape.