When the old gentleman peevishly inquires what the hell the butler is doing, the faithful retainer replies: "I'm sorry, sir, but I distinctly heard you call for a hot water bottle and a bottle of olives." Say the last nine words quickly, running them together, and you'll get the joke.
This was a real blood-and-guts test series with two great rivals hammering away at each other. So why this current obsession with two-test series?
It's because of Twenty20. Supposedly the new face of cricket, designed to appeal to those who don't care about or understand test cricket and who are getting bored with 50-over ODIs (what a short span-of-attention, fickle, throwaway society we are ...), T20 has invaded cricket like a virus.
The irrelevance and shallowness of the IPL is matched only by the obscene amounts of money on offer from the new lords of cricket - India. Players circle these vast earnings like carrion over the wheezing, dying long form of the game. Most still offer the view that tests are still the best form of cricket but it's really only lip service.
But it's not the players' fault. The impact of the short forms of the game is illustrated by Australia and South Africa taking 16 days to play five one-day or T20 games. The advent of T20 has shortened itineraries; the "pinnacle" of the game forced to make way for the brash young upstart.
That's why there were only two test matches in South Africa. Not enough room, not enough time, not enough money - and not enough care by the International Cricket Council, the real villain which struggles to control its own sport in the face of the real overlords, including the broadcasters.
That's the same ICC who passed up the idea of a global test championship to put some starch back into test cricket; the same ICC who won't buck India's wishes and dismissed the further use of technology.
It's all a bit sad. How long before T20 fails to hold those with the attention span of a garden gnome and who do not appreciate the science, the chess and the intensity of test cricket?
What next? T10? Or a six-over swish? Or maybe a quickfire game called 11-ball - where each batsman gets one ball to score from. Barely time to eat your cheeseburger.
Before anyone writes me an abusive letter saying I am a tired old codger breaking wind in the bath and not appreciating that times have changed, I acknowledge that cricket has to find a way to pay for itself; to grow. That much is crystal clear. It's just that eating your own foot doesn't seem like the best way to win the marathon.
Greed is overwhelming governance. In the short term, they are making a killing. In the long term, they are killing the very thing that made such money possible. Cricket is in danger of becoming a sideshow, losing sight of what gave it substance in the first place.
New Zealand will play only two test matches against Australia - caused by Australia's busy test, one-day and T20 schedule. Some would say there is room for two-test series where there is a great divide between the teams - but I don't buy that one either. Surely the only way a team will improve is to test itself against the best and Australian cricket will always be among the best.
A body like the ICC, determined to safeguard and grow the game, must surely embrace more test matches, not less. But it seems this cricket regime, run by a man called Haroon Lorgat (whose name is almost an anagram of Honorary Galoot), is content to let the game's vital juices dribble down its trouser leg.
The ICC seems to me to be like the men who like their women to have boob jobs. They're big, they're impressive trophies, they're neon signs proclaiming rampant womanhood. These blokes like other men looking at their prized assets.
They're bags of sand inside a perfectly good breast is what they are - an unnecessary and patently false addition to something that didn't really need it. Just like T20.
