2.20: Going home

As they walk back home to the Potting Shed on the following bright autumnal morning, Lottie asks Alcock whether this story hasn’t been, underneath some inessential differences, really almost the same as the Curious Case of Juggins-the-False? 

“Yes,” Alcock replies: “That is how I was able to solve it.”

“But doesn’t that mean that the story-teller isn’t very good?”

“Sadly, no, he isn't. But sometimes the apparently inessential differences are what are really important. That thought, from King Lear, was once almost the motto of a famous book of philosophy.”

“Oh,” says Lottie, a little doubtfully, and carries on walking down the hill.

 The End.