“That’s it,” said Angry. “Cholmondeley. It’s here in black and white.”

“It’s Chumley,” said the man. A small frown line had appeared on his forehead.

“Listen, mate,” said Angry, “are you saying we can’t read?”

“Not at all. The name is simply pronounced ‘Chumley.’ ”

“Then why is it spelled ‘Cholmondeley’?” asked Jolly.

“It just is,” said the man.

“Well, that’s nonsense,” said Angry. “That’s like spelling a name S-M-I-T-H and calling yourself Jones.”

“No,” said the man, with some force, “it isn’t.”

“Yes,” said Angry, with equal force, “it is.”

It was left to Dan to intervene.

“It’s a posh thing,” he explained to the dwarfs.

“Oooooh,” they said in unison, nodding in understanding. Posh people did things differently. Everybody knew that. Jolly had heard that posh people were born with silver spoons in their mouths, which probably explained why they all talked funny.

“Right you are then, guv,” said Jolly. “We’re here to see Mr. Chumley. Mr. St. John-Chumley.”

“Sinjin,” said the man.

“Bless you,” said Jolly.

“No, I didn’t sneeze,” said the man. “It’s Sinjin.”

“Beg pardon?” said Jolly.

By now the man had started to look decidedly irritated.

“It’s my name!” he said. “It’s Sinjin-Chumley. How hard can it be?”

The dwarfs crowded around Jolly, and all four of them examined the name on the note, running their fingers beneath it, pronouncing the syllables and occasionally glancing up at the gentleman standing before them as though trying to equate his name with the peculiar jumble of letters before them.

“Actually, pretty hard,” said Angry at last. “You might need to have a think about that one. Don’t take this the wrong way, mate, but you’ll never get anywhere in life if you have a made-up name that doesn’t sound the way it’s spelled. You’d better hang on to this job. If you lose it, you’ll never get another. It’s always easier to hire someone whose name you can say without hurting your tongue.”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley gave Angry a hard stare.

“I take it that you’re here about the job,” he said, in the tone of a man who is hoping that he might be mistaken.

“We were ‘invited to attend for an interview,’ ” said Jolly.

“Indeed. Well, do come in. It shouldn’t take long.”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley stepped aside to admit the dwarfs into his office. It was small, and contained only a desk and a chair. The shelves were entirely bare, and there was nothing on the desk except for a single sheet of white paper, a pen, and a small, sad-looking artificial Christmas tree with a red button on its base. Angry, who couldn’t resist a red button when he saw one, pressed it. Immediately the tree began to bob from side to side and “Jingle Bells” emerged from a hidden speaker.

“What language is that?” asked Angry.

“I’m not sure,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “I think it might be Urdu, or possibly Serbo-Croat. It’s difficult to tell. We found a box of them in storage when we began fixing up the shop.”