On a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of September, running the October forecast, he went down a column of event bookings for the grand ballroom.

And one of the rows said:

CADDO SPRINGS HS — CLASS OF 2014 — 10 YEAR REUNION — SAT 19 OCT — GRAND BALLROOM — 211 COVERS — DEPOSIT RECEIVED — CONTRACT 4471.

He telephoned me that evening and I could hear that something had shifted.

Two hundred and eleven covers.

That is where the number came from that he had said to me eight days earlier.

He had guessed it from a comment thread and then it had arrived on a spreadsheet as a catering line, exact, with a deposit against it.