A friend used to joke that he was keeping a confidence quite secret, and that he had only told persons X and Y. Of course they were well-known to be notorious gossips—you could expect your secret to be all over the good-sized company in a matter of days, if not hours.

I once heard about someone supposedly resigning from company H. The source had no particular animus, although he was often particularly critical of management ‘paper-pushers”. But he assured me that he had seen the evidence.

It turned out that he didn’t get the name right. There had been a resignation, by a “lesser” person (lesser only in the sense of salary and perceived power in the company), who had a somewhat similar and unusual name.

But I couldn’t resist telling someone, as I knew it was good news for many. And I had a very small axe to grind, as this guy had obliquely insulted me some time before.

Within a day or so, the “news” came back to me, fully confirmed by various august personages. The mistaken person was of course in furious denial when he started to be well-wished, and was hot on the trail of the saboteur, whose intentions he could only presume to have been ill.

I don’t think he ever figured it out.