“It’s more than ten words,” I rejoined.

“Very well.” His voice became crisp as he mentally squared off to the problem. “First inference: The speaker is aggrieved.”

“I’ll grant that,” I said, “although it hardly seems to be an inference. It’s really implicit in the statement.”

He nodded impatiently. “Next inference: The rain was unforeseen, otherwise he would have said, ‘A nine-mile walk in the rain is no joke,’ instead of using the ‘especially’ phrase as an afterthought.”

“I’ll allow that,” I said, “although it’s pretty obvious.”

“First inferences should be obvious,” said Nicky tartly.

I let it go at that. He seemed to be floundering and I didn’t want to rub it in. “Next inference: The speaker is not an athlete or an outdoorsman.”

“You’ll have to explain that one,” I said.

“It’s the ‘especially’ phrase again,” he said. “The speaker does not say that a nine-mile walk in the rain is no joke, but merely the walk — just the distance, mind you — is no joke. Now, nine miles is not such a terribly long distance. You walk more than half that in eighteen holes of golf — and golf is an old man’s game,” he added slyly. I play golf.

“Well, that would be all right under ordinary circumstances,” I said, “but there are other possibilities. The speaker might be a soldier in the jungle, in which case nine miles would be a pretty good hike, rain or no rain.”

“Yes,” and Nicky was sarcastic, “and the speaker might be one-legged. For that matter, the speaker might be a graduate student writing a Ph. D. on humor and starting by listing all the things that are not funny. See here, I’ll have to make a couple of assumptions before I continue.”

“How do you mean?” I asked suspiciously.