Silver had a brutally tense afternoon on Friday.
While the rest of the merry band were drinking in the sun, Silver sat alone in the office, silently watching his telephone.
The cause of anxiety was the recent publication of Silver’s epic love song to investigative journalism, the Afren story.
The saga — many months of Silver’s blood, sweat and tears — tells the twisting tale of the collapse of the London-listed oil exploration and production company.
Silver was waiting in trepidation for responses from readers, especially those implicated in Afren’s downfall.
And then an email pinged innocuously into Silver’s inbox.
The many hairs on Silver’s back stood on end as he recognised the email sender, a contact from a company that could be sued over the collapse of the African oil firm.
Silver clicked the email open with one hoof in front of his eyes.
But rather than the torrent of abuse which he expected, the email contained a compliment for Silver’s glittering prose.
The email referred to the concluding lines of Silver’s tale of woe, which point out that "when management and investors get caught up in the financial architecture, they can lose sight of the ground crumbling under their feet."
That was a "great metaphor", the contact wrote.
Silver emitted a long whinny of relief and immediately starting planning his new life as a poet.