Free of the Phantom

What’s the qualification for being a bare-faced liar? Is it necessarily not having a beard? The topic came up when one of the staff phoned me to ask if it was okay if he arrived a bit late. He had an excellent reason for his request: he’d been visited by the Phantom Postman and he had to go to the sorting office for something that needed a signature.

The sickening thing about it, for him, was that he’d heard the billet doux coming through the letterbox. There was no ring on the doorbell and no knock on the knocker, just the distinctive clunk from the hall of the letterbox flap closing. In the absence of a thud, Roger assumed that it was just the postman dropping more junk leaflets on him and he took no notice at the time.

It wasn’t until 20 minutes later that he looked behind the door and found the form proclaiming that the phantom had called “while he was out”. Which raised the interesting question of how the phantom knew Roger was out if he’d not bothered to check.

Roger actually saw the guy doing the other side of his street a couple of hours later. When he asked the phantom if he still had the item that needed signing for, he was told it was at the sorting office. The phantom also claimed that he’d been knocking on doors all morning. Roger resisted the temptation to deck the guy for telling him such a weak and feeble lie. He just looked at him to tell him he (Roger) knew he was lying and the phantom also knew he was lying. This was where we got to discussing the qualifications of bare-faced liars.

Afterwards, it occurred to me that we, at the Mansion, are protected against the phantom and his allies. Any postman who tries to do a hit-and-run with a form instead of doing his job is liable to find himself the star of CCTV that proves he’s a liar and on the wrong side of a malfunctioning main gate with a lot of wall to climb!