At the outbreak of the war of 1914 Uncle Roderick had declared for retrenchment. 'It's up to all of us who are over military age to do what we can. All unnecessary expenses must be cut down.'

'Why?' asked Great-Aunt Anne.

'It is a question of national emergency and patriotism.'

'How will our being uncomfortable hurt the Germans? It's just what they want.'

'Everything is needed at the front,' explained William's mother.

Discussion had raged for some days; every suggested economy seemed to strike invidiously at particular members of the household. At last it was decided to give up the telephone. Aunt Anne sometimes spoke bitterly of the time when 'my nephew Roderick won the war by cutting me off from my few surviving friends', but the service had never been renewed. The antiquated mahogany box still stood at the bottom of the stairs, dusty and silent, and telegrams which arrived in the village after tea were delivered next day with the morning post. Thus, William found Mr Salter's telegram waiting for him on the breakfast table.

His mother, Priscilla, and his three uncles sat round the table. They had finished eating and were sitting there, as they often sat for an hour or so, doing nothing at all. Priscilla alone was occupied, killing comatose wasps in the honey on her plate.

'There's a telegram for you,' said his mother. 'We were wondering whether we ought to open it or send it up to you.'

It said: MUST SEE YOU IMMEDIATELY URGENT BUSINESS ARRIVING BOOT MAGNA HALT TOMORROW AFTERNOON 6.10 SALTER.

The message was passed from hand to hand around the table.

Mrs Boot said, 'Who is Mr Salter, and what urgent business can he possibly have here?'

Uncle Roderick said, 'He can't stay the night. Nowhere for him to sleep.'

Uncle Bernard said, 'You must telegraph and put him off.'

Uncle Theodore said, 'I knew a chap called Salter once, but I don't suppose it's the same one.'

Priscilla said, 'I believe he means to come today. It's dated yesterday.'

'He's the Foreign Editor of the Beast,' William explained. 'The one I told you about who sent me abroad.'

'He must be a very pushful fellow, inviting himself here like this. Anyway, as Roderick says, we've no room for him.'

'We could send Priscilla to the Caldicotes for the night.'

'I like that,' said Priscilla, adding illogically. 'Why don't you send William, it's his friend.'

'Yes,' said Mrs Boot, 'Priscilla could go to the Caldicotes.'

'I'm cubbing tomorrow,' said Priscilla, 'right in the other direction. You can't expect Lady Caldicote to send me thirty miles at eight in the morning.'

For over an hour the details of Priscilla's hunt occupied the dining-room. Could she send her horse overnight to a farm near the meet; could she leave the Caldicotes at dawn, pick up her horse at Boot Magna, and ride on; could she borrow Major Watkins' trailer and take her horse to the Caldicotes for the night, then as far as Major Watkins's in the morning and ride on from there; if she got the family car from Aunt Anne and Major Watkins' trailer, would Lady Caldicote lend her a car to take it to Major Watkins's, would Aunt Anne allow the car to stay the night; would she discover it was taken without her permission? They discussed the question exhaustively, from every angle; Troutbeck twice glowered at them from the door and finally began to clear the table; Mr Salter and the object of his visit were not mentioned.

****

That evening, some time after the advertised hour, Mr Salter alighted at Boot Magna Halt. An hour earlier, at Taunton, he had left the express, and changed into a train such as he did not know existed outside the imagination of his Balkan correspondents; a single tram-like, one-class coach, which had pottered in a desultory fashion through a system of narrow, under-populated valleys. It had stopped eight times, and at every station there had been a bustle of passengers succeeded by a long, silent pause, before it started again; men had entered who, instead of slinking and shuffling and wriggling themselves into corners and decently screening themselves behind newspapers, as civilized people should when they travelled by train, had sat down squarely quite close to Mr Salter, rested their hands on their knees, stared at him fixedly and uncritically and suddenly addressed him on the subject of the weather in barely intelligible accents; there had been very old, unhygienic men and women, such as you never saw in the Underground, who ought long ago to have been put away in some public institution; there had been women carrying a multitude of atrocious little baskets and parcels which they piled on the seats; one of them had put a hamper containing a live turkey under Mr Salter's feet. It had been a horrible journey.

At last, with relief, Mr Salter alighted. He lifted his suitcase from among the sinister bundles on the rack and carried it to the centre of the platform. There was no one else for Boot Magna. Mr Salter had hoped to find William waiting to meet him, but the little station was empty except for a single porter who was leaning against the cab of the engine engaged in a kind of mute, telepathetic converse with the driver, and a cretinous native youth who stood on the further side of the paling, leant against it and picked at the dry paint-bubbles with a toe-like thumb nail. When Mr Salter looked at him, he glanced away and grinned wickedly at his boots.

The train observed its customary two minutes silence and then steamed slowly away. The porter shuffled across the line and disappeared into a hut labelled 'Lamps'. Mr Salter turned towards the palings; the youth was still leaning there, gazing; his eye dropped; he grinned. Three times, shuttlecock fashion, they alternately glanced up and down till Mr Salter with urban impatience tired of the flirtation and spoke up.

'I say.'

'Ur.'

'Do you happen to know whether Mr Boot has sent a car for me?'

'Ur.'

'He has?'

'Noa. She've a taken of the harse.'

'I am afraid you misunderstand me.' Mr Salter's voice sounded curiously flutey and querulous in contrast to the deep tones of the moron. 'I'm coming to visit Mr Boot. I wondered if he had sent a motor-car for me.'

'He've a sent me.'

'With the car?'

'Noa. Motor-car's over to Lady Caldicote's taking of the harse. The bay,' he explained, since Mr Salter seemed not to be satisfied with this answer. 'Had to be the bay for because the mare's sick... The old bay's not up yet,' he added as though to make everything perfectly clear.

'Well how am I to get to the house?'

'Why, along of me and Bert Tyler.'

'Has this Mr Tyler got a car then?'

'Noa. I tell e car's over to Lady Caldicote's along of Miss Priscilla and the bay... Had to be the bay,' he persisted, 'because for the mare's sick.'

'Yes, yes, I quite appreciate that.'

'And the old bay's still swole up with grass. So you'm to ride along of we.'

'Ride?' A hideous vision rose before Mr Salter.

'Ur. Along of me and Bert Tyler and the slag.'

'Slag?'

'Ur. Mr Roderick's getting in the slag now for to slag Westerheys. Takes a tidy bit.'

Mr Salter was suffused with relief. 'You mean that you have some kind of vehicle outside full of slag?'

'Ur. Cheaper now than what it will be when Mr Roderick wants it.'

Mr Salter descended the steps into the yard where, out of sight from the platform, an open lorry was standing; an old man next to the driving seat touched his cap; the truck was loaded high with sacks; bonnet and back bore battered learner plates. The youth took Mr Salter's suitcase and heaved it up among the slag. 'You'm to ride behind,' he said.

'If it's all the same to you,' said Mr Salter rather sharply, 'I should prefer to sit in front.'

'It's all the same to me, but I dursn't let you. The police would have I.'

'Good gracious, why?'

'Bert Tyler have to ride along of me, for because of the testers.'

'Testers?'

'Ur. Police don't allow for me to drive except along of Bert Tyler. Bert Tyler he've a had a licence twenty year. There weren't no testers for Bert Tyler. But police they took and tested I over to Taunton.'

'And you failed?'

A great grin spread over the young man's face. 'I busted tester's leg for he,' he said proudly. 'Ran he bang into the wall, going a fair lick.'

'Oh dear. Wouldn't it be better for your friend Tyler to drive us?'

'Noa. He can't see for to drive, Bert Tyler can't. Don't e be afeared. I can see right. It be the corners do for I.'

'And are there many corners between here and the house?'

'Tidy few.'

Mr Salter, who had had his foot on the hub of the wheel preparatory to mounting, now drew back. His nerve, never strong, had been severely tried that afternoon; now it failed him.

'I'll walk,' he said. 'How far is it?'

'Well, it's all according as you know the way. We do call it three mile over the fields. It's a tidy step by the road.'

'Perhaps you'll be good enough to show me the field path.'

''Tain't exactly what you could call a path. 'E just keeps straight.'

'Well I daresay I shall find it. If... if by any chance you get to the house before me will you tell Mr Boot that I wanted a little exercise after the journey?'

The learner-driver looked at Mr Salter with undisguised contempt. 'I'll tell e as you was afeared to ride along of me and Bert Tyler,' he said.

Mr Salter stepped back into the station porch to avoid the dust as the lorry drove away. It was as well that he did so, for, as he mounted the incline, the driver mistakenly changed into reverse and the machine charged precipitately back in its tracks, and came noisily to rest against the wall where Mr Salter had been standing. The second attempt was more successful and it reached the lane with no worse damage than a mudguard crushed against the near gatepost.

Then with rapid, uncertain steps Mr Salter set out on his walk to the house.

****

It was eight o'clock when Mr Salter arrived at the front door. He had covered a good six miles tacking from field to field under the setting sun; he had scrambled through fences and ditches; in one enormous pasture a herd of cattle had closed silently in on him and followed at his heels--the nearest not a yard away--with lowered heads and heavy breath; Mr Salter had broken into a run and they had trotted after him; when he gained the stile and turned to face them, they began gently grazing in his tracks; dogs had flown at him in three farmyards where he had stopped to ask the way, and to be misdirected; at last, when he felt he could go no further but must lie down and perish from exposure under the open sky, he had tumbled through an overgrown stile to find himself in the main road with the lodge gates straight ahead; the last mile up the drive had been the bitterest of all.

And now he stood under the porch, sweating, blistered, nettle-stung, breathless, parched, dizzy, dead-beat and dishevelled, with his bowler hat in one hand and umbrella in the other, leaning against a stucco pillar waiting for someone to open the door. Nobody came. He pulled again at the bell; there was no responsive spring, no echo in the hall beyond. No sound broke the peace of the evening save, in the elms that stood cumbrously on every side, the crying of the rooks and, not unlike it but nearer at hand, directly it seemed over Mr Salter's head, a strong baritone decanting irregular snatches of sacred music.

'In Thy courts no more are needed, sun by day nor moon by night,' sang Uncle Theodore blithely, stepping into his evening trousers; he remembered it as a treble solo rising to the dim vaults of the school chapel, touching the toughest adolescent hearts; he remembered it imperfectly but with deep emotion.

Mr Salter listened, unmoved. In despair he began to pound the front door with his umbrella. The singing ceased and the voice in fruity, more prosaic tones demanded, 'What, ho, without there?'

Mr Salter hobbled down the steps, clear of the porch, and saw framed in the ivy of a first-floor window, a ruddy, Hanoverian face and plump, bare torso. 'Good-evening,' he said politely.

'Good-evening.' Uncle Theodore leaned out as far as he safely could and stared at Mr Salter through a monocle. 'From where you are standing,' he said, 'you might easily take me to be totally undraped. Let me hasten to assure you that such is not the case. Seemly black shrouds me from the waist down. No doubt you are the friend my nephew William is expecting.'

'Yes... I've been ringing the bell.'

'It sounded to me,' said Uncle Theodore severely, 'as though you were hammering the door with a stick.'

'Yes, I was. You see...'

'You'll be late for dinner, you know, if you stand out there kicking up a rumpus. And so shall I if I stay talking to you. We will meet again shortly in more conventional circumstances. For the moment--a riverderci.'

The head withdrew and once more the melody rose into the twilight, mounted to the encircling tree-tops and joined the chorus of the homing rooks.

Mr Salter tried the handle of the door. It opened easily. Never in his life had he made his own way into anyone else's house. Now he did so and found himself in a lobby cluttered with implements of sport, overcoats, rugs, a bicycle or two and a stuffed bear. Beyond it, glass doors led into the hall. He was dimly aware of a shadowy double staircase which rose and spread before him, of a large, carpetless chequer of black and white marble paving, of islands of furniture and some potted palms. Quite near the glass doors stood a little armchair where no one ever sat; there Mr Salter sank and there he was found twenty minutes later by William's mother when she came down to dinner. His last action before he lapsed into coma had been to remove his shoes.

Mrs Boot surveyed the figure with some distaste and went on her way to the drawing-room. It was one of the days when James was on his feet; she could hear him next door rattling the silver on the dining-room table. 'James,' she called, through the double doors.

'Yes, madam.'

'Mr William's friend has arrived. I think perhaps he would like to wash.'

'Very good, madam.'

Mr Salter was not really asleep; he had been aware, remotely and impersonally, of Mrs Boot's scrutiny; he was aware, now, of James's slow passage across the hall.

'Dinner will be in directly, sir. May I take you to your room?'

For a moment Mr Salter thought he would be unable ever to move again; then, painfully, he rose to his feet. He observed his discarded shoes; so did James; neither of them felt disposed to stoop; each respected the other's feeling; Mr Salter padded upstairs beside the footman.

'I regret to say, sir, that your luggage is not yet available. Three of the outside men are delving for it at the moment.'

'Delving?'

'Assiduously, sir. It was inundated with slag at the time of the accident.'

'Accident?'

'Yes, sir, there has been a misadventure to the farm lorry that was conveying it from the station; we attribute it to the driver's inexperience. He overturned the vehicle in the back drive.'

'Was he hurt?'

'Oh, yes, sir; gravely. Here is your room, sir.'

An oil lamp, surrounded by moths and autumnal beetles, burned on Priscilla's dressing-table illuminating a homely, girlish room. Little had been done beyond the removal of loofah and nightdress, to adapt it for male occupation. Twenty or thirty china animals stood on brackets and shelves, together with slots of deer, brushes of foxes, pads of otters, a horse's hoof, and other animal trophies; a low, bronchial growl came from under the bed.

'Miss Priscilla hoped you would not object to taking charge of Amabel for the night, sir. She's getting an old dog now and doesn't like to be moved. You'll find her perfectly quiet and good. If she barks in the night, it is best to feed her.'

James indicated two saucers of milk and minced meat which stood on the bed table that had already attracted Mr Salter's attention.

'Would that be all, sir?'

'Thank you,' said Mr Salter, weakly.

James left, gently closing the door which, owing to a long standing defect in its catch, as gently swung open again behind him.

Mr Salter poured some warm water into the prettily flowered basin on the wash-hand stand.

James returned. 'I omitted to tell you, sir, the lavatory on this floor is out of order. The gentlemen use the one opening on the library.'

'Thank you.'

James repeated the pantomime of shutting the door.

****

Nurse Granger was always first down in the drawing-room. Dinner was supposed to be at quarter-past eight, and for fifteen years she had been on time. She was sitting there, stitching a wool mat of modernistic design, when Mrs Boot first entered. When Mrs Boot had given her order to James, she smiled at her and said, 'How is your patient tonight, nurse?' and Nurse Granger answered as she had answered nightly for fifteen years, 'A little low-spirited.'

'Yes,' said Mrs Boot, 'she gets low-spirited in the evenings.'

The two women sat in silence, Nurse Granger snipping and tugging at the magenta wool; Mrs Boot reading a gardening magazine to which she subscribed. It was not until Lady Trilby entered the room that she expressed her forebodings.

'The boys are late,' said Lady Trilby.

'William's friend,' said Mrs Boot gravely, 'has arrived in a most peculiar condition.'

'I know. I watched him come up the drive. Reelin' all over the shop.'

'He let himself in and went straight off to sleep in the hall.'

'Best thing for him.'

'You mean... You don't think he could have been...?'

'The man was squiffy,' said Aunt Anne. 'It was written all over him.'

Nurse Granger uttered a knowing little cluck of disapproval.

'It's lucky Priscilla isn't here. What had we better do?'

'The boys will see to him.'

'Here is Theodore. I will ask him at once. Theodore, William's friend from London has arrived and Aunt Anne and I very much fear that he has taken too much.'

'Has he, by Jove?' said Uncle Theodore rather enviously. 'Now you mention it, I shouldn't be at all surprised. I talked to the fellow out of my window. He was pounding the front door fit to knock it in.'

'What ought we to do?'

'Oh, he'll sober up,' said Uncle Theodore from deep experience. Uncle Roderick joined them. 'I say Rod, what d'you think? That journalist fellow of William's--he's sozzled.'

'Disgusting. Is he fit to come in to dinner?'

'We'd better keep an eye on him to see he doesn't get any more.'

'Yes. I'll tell James.'

Uncle Bernard joined the family circle. 'Good-evening, good-evening,' he said in his courtly fashion. 'I'm nearly the last I see.'

'Bernard, we have something to tell you.'

'And I have something to tell you. I was sitting in the library not two minutes ago when a dirty little man came prowling in--without any shoes on.'

'Was he tipsy?'

'I dare say... now you mention it, I think he was.'

'That's William's friend.'

'Well he should be taken care of. Where is William?'

****

William was playing dominoes with Nannie Bloggs. It was this custom of playing dominoes with her from six till seven every evening, which had prevented him meeting Mr Salter at the station. On this particular evening the game had been prolonged far beyond its usual limit. Three times he had attempted to leave, but the old woman was inflexible. 'Just you stay where you sit,' she said. 'You always were a headstrong, selfish boy. Worse than your Uncle Theodore. Gallivanting about all over Africa with a lot of heathens, and now you are home you don't want to spend a few minutes with your old Nannie.'

'But, nannie, I've got a guest arriving.'

'Guest. Time enough for him. It's not you he's after I'll be bound. It's my pretty Priscilla. You leave them be... I'll make it half a sovereign this time.'

Not until the gong sounded for dinner would she let him go. 'Change your clothes quickly. Wash your hands,' she said, 'and brush your hair nicely. And mind you bring Priscilla's young man up afterwards and we'll have a nice game of cards. It's thirty-three shillings you owe me.'

****

Mr Salter had no opportunity of talking business at dinner. He sat between Mrs Boot and Lady Trilby; never an exuberant man, he now felt subdued almost to extinction and took his place glumly between the two formidable ladies; he might feel a little stronger, he hoped, after a glass of wine.

James moved heavily round the table with the decanters; claret for the ladies, William and Uncle Bernard, whisky and water for Uncle Theodore, medicated cider for Uncle Roderick. 'Water, sir?' said a voice in Mr Salter's ear.

'Well, I think perhaps I would sooner...' A clear and chilling cascade fell into his tumbler and James returned to the sideboard.

William, noticing a little shudder pass over his guest, leaned forward across the table. 'I say, Salter, haven't they given you anything to drink?'

'Well, as a matter of fact...'

Mrs Boot frowned at her son--a frown like a sudden spasm of pain. 'Mr Salter prefers water.'

'Nothing like it,' said Uncle Theodore. 'I respect him for it.'

'Well, as a matter of fact...'

Both ladies addressed him urgently and simultaneously: 'You're a great walker, Mr Salter,' in challenging tones from Lady Trilby; 'It is quite a treat for you to get away from your work into the country,' more gently from Mrs Boot. By the time that Mr Salter had dealt civilly with these two mis-statements, the subject of wine was closed.

Dinner was protracted for nearly an hour, but not by reason of any great profusion or variety of food. It was rather a bad dinner; scarcely better than he would have got at Lord Copper's infamous table; greatly inferior to the daintily garnished little dishes which he enjoyed at home. In course of time each member of the Boot family had evolved an individual style of eating; before each plate was ranged a little store of seasonings and delicacies, all marked with their owner's initials--onion salt, Bombay duck, gherkins, garlic vinegar, Dijon mustard, pea-nut butter, icing sugar, varieties of biscuit from Bath and Tunbridge Wells, Parmesan cheese, and a dozen other jars and bottles and tins mingled incongruously with the heavy, Georgian silver; Uncle Theodore had a little spirit lamp and chafing dish with which he concocted a sauce. The dishes as sent in from the kitchen were rather the elementary materials of dinner than the dinner itself. Mr Salter found them correspondingly dull and unconscionably slow in coming. Conversation was general and intermittent.

Like foreign news bulletins, Boot family table talk took the form of antithetical statement rather than of free discussion.

'Priscilla took Amabel with her to the Caldicotes,' said Lady Trilby.

'She left her behind,' said Mrs Boot.

'A dirty old dog,' said Uncle Bernard.

'Too old to go visiting,' said Uncle Roderick.

'Too dirty.'

'Mr Salter is having Amabel to sleep with him,' said Mrs Boot.

'Mr Salter is very fond of her,' said Lady Trilby.

'He doesn't know her,' said Uncle Bernard.

'He's very fond of all dogs,' said Mrs Boot.

There was a pause in which James announced: 'If you please, madam, the men have sent up to say it is too dark to go on moving the slag.'

'Very awkward,' said Uncle Roderick. 'Blocks the back drive.'

'And Mr Salter will have no things for the night,' said Mrs Boot.

'William will lend him some.'

'Mr Salter will not mind. He will understand.'

'But he is sorry to have lost his things.'

****

Presently Mr Salter got the hang of it. 'It is a long way from the station,' he ventured.

'You stopped on the way.'

'Yes, to ask... I was lost.'

'You stopped several times.'

****

At last dinner came to an end.

'He got better towards the end of dinner,' said Lady Trilby in the drawing-room.

'He is practically himself again,' said Mrs Boot.

'Roderick will see that he does not get at the port.'

****

'You won't take port,' said Uncle Roderick.

'Well, as a matter of fact...'

'Push it round to Bernard, there's a good fellow.'

'You and William have business to discuss.'

'Yes,' said Mr Salter eagerly. 'Yes, it's most important.'

'You could go to the library.'

'Yes.'

William led his guest from the table and out of the room.

'Common little fellow,' said Uncle Roderick.

'It's a perfectly good name,' said Uncle Bernard. 'An early corruption of saltire, which no doubt he bears on his coat. But of course it may have been assumed irregularly.'

'Can't hold it,' said Uncle Theodore.

'I always understood that the true Salters became extinct in the fifteenth century...'

****

In the library William for the first time had the chance of apologising for the neglect of his guest.

'Of course, of course. I quite understand that living where you do, you are naturally distracted... I would not have intruded on you for the world. But it was a matter of first-rate importance--of Lord Copper's personal wishes, you understand.

'There are two things. First, your contract with us, Boot,' said Mr Salter earnestly, 'you won't desert the ship?'

'Eh?'

'I mean it was the Beast that gave you your chance. You mustn't forget that?'

'No.'

'I suppose the Brute have made a very attractive offer. But believe me, Boot, I've known Fleet Street longer than you have. I've seen several men transfer from us to them. They thought they were going to be better off but they weren't. It's no life for a man of individuality, working for the Brute. You'd be selling your soul, Boot.... You haven't, by the way, sold it?'

'No. They did send me a telegram. But to tell you the truth I was so glad to be home that I forgot to answer it.'

'Thank heaven. I've got a contract here, ready drawn up. Duplicate copies. They only need your signature. Luckily I did not pack them in my suitcase. A life contract for two thousand a year. Will you sign?'

William signed. He and Mr Salter each folded his copy and put it in his pocket; each with a feeling of deep satisfaction.

'And then there's the question of the banquet. There won't be any difficulty about that now. I quite understand that while the Brute offer was still in the air... Well I'm delighted it's settled. You had better come up with me tomorrow morning. Lord Copper may want to see you beforehand.'

'No.'

'But, my dear Boot... You need have no worry about your speech. That is being written for you by Lord Copper's social secretary. It will be quite simple. Five minutes or so in praise of Lord Copper.'

'No.'

'The banquet will be widely reported. There may even be a film made of it.'

'No.'

'Really Boot I can't understand you at all.'

'Well,' said William with difficulty, 'I should feel an ass.'

'Yes,' said Mr Salter, 'I can understand that. But it's only for one evening.'

'I've felt an ass for weeks. Ever since I went to London. I've been treated like an ass.'

'Yes,' said Mr Salter sadly. 'That's what we are paid for.'

'It's one thing being an ass in Africa. But if I go to this banquet they may learn about it down here.'

'No doubt they would.'

'Nannie Bloggs and Nannie Price and everyone.'

Mr Salter was not in fighting form and he knew it. The strength was gone out of him. He was dirty and blistered and aching in every limb, cold sober and unsuitably dressed. He was in a strange country. These people were not his people nor their laws his. He felt like a Roman legionary, heavily armed, weighted with the steel and cast brass of civilization, tramping through forests beyond the Roman pale, harassed by silent, illusive savages, the vanguard of an advance that had pushed too far and lost touch with the base... or was he the abandoned rearguard of a retreat? Had the legions sailed?

'I think,' he said, 'I'd better ring up the office and ask their advice.'

'You can't do that,' said William cheerfully. 'The nearest telephone is three miles away; there's no car; and anyway it shuts at seven.'

Silence fell in the library. Once more Mr Salter rallied to the attack. He tried sarcasm.

'These ladies you mention; no doubt they are estimable people, but surely, my dear Boot, you will admit that Lord Copper is a little more important.'

'No,' said William gravely. 'Not down here.'

****

They were still sitting in silence when ten minutes later Troutbeck came to them.

'Miss Bloggs says she is expecting you upstairs to play cards.'

'You don't mind?' William asked.

Mr Salter was past minding anything. He was led upstairs, down long lamp-lit corridors, through doors of faded baize to Nannie Bloggs's room. Uncle Theodore was already there arranging the card table beside her bed. 'So this is him,' she said. 'Why hasn't he got any shoes?'

'It's a long story,' said William.

The beady old eyes studied Mr Salter's careworn face; she put on her spectacles and looked again. 'Too old,' she said.

Coming from whom it did, this criticism seemed a bit thick; even in his depressed condition, Mr Salter was roused to resentment. 'Too old for what?' he asked sharply.

Nannie Bloggs, though hard as agate about matters of money and theology, had, in old age, a soft spot for a lover. 'There, there, dearie,' she said. 'I don't mean anything. There's many a young heart beats in an old body. Sit down. Cut the cards, Mr Theodore. You've had a disappointment I know, her being away. She always was a contrary girl. The harder the wooing the sweeter the winning, they say--two spades--and there's many a happy marriage between April and December--don't go peeping over my hand, Mr Theodore--and she's a good girl at heart, though she does forget her neck sometimes--three spades--comes out of the bath just as black as she went in, I don't know what she does there...'

They played three rubbers and Mr Salter lost twenty-two shillings. As they rose to leave, Nannie Bloggs, who had from long habit kept up a more or less continuous monologue during the course of the game said, 'Don't give up, dearie. If it wasn't that your hair was thinning you mightn't be more than thirty-five. She doesn't know her own mind yet and that's the truth.'

They left. William and Uncle Theodore accompanied Mr Salter to his room. William said 'Goodnight.' Uncle Theodore lingered.

'Pity you doubled our hearts,' he said.

'Yes.'

'Got you down badly.'

'Yes.'

A single candle stood on the table by the bed. In its light Mr Salter saw a suit of borrowed pyjamas laid out. Sleep was coming on him like a vast, pea-soup fog, rolling down Fleet Street from Ludgate Hill. He did not want to discuss their game of bridge.

'We had all the cards,' said Uncle Theodore magnanimously, sitting down on the bed.

'Yes.'

'I expect you keep pretty late hours in London.'

'Yes... no... that is to say, sometimes.'

'Hard to get used to country hours. I don't suppose you feel a bit sleepy.'

'Well, as a matter of fact...'

'When I lived in London,' began Uncle Theodore...

****

The candle burned low.

****

'Funny thing that...'

Mr Salter awoke with a start. He was sitting in Priscilla's chintz-covered armchair; Uncle Theodore was still on the bed, reclining now like a surfeited knight of the age of Heliogabalus...

'Of course you couldn't print it. But I've quite a number of stories you could print. Hundreds of 'em. I was wondering if it was the kind of thing your newspaper...'

'Quite outside my province, I'm afraid. You see, I'm the Foreign Editor.'

'Half of them deal with Paris; more than half. For instance...'

'I should love to hear them, all of them, sometime, later, not now...'

'You pay very handsomely, I believe, on the Beast.'

'Yes.'

'Now suppose I was to write a series of articles...'

'Mr Boot,' said Mr Salter desperately. 'Let us discuss it in the morning.'

'I'm never in my best form in the morning,' said Uncle Theodore doubtfully. 'Now after dinner I can talk quite happily until any time.'

'Come to London. See the Features Editor.'

'Yes,' said Uncle Theodore. 'I will. But I don't want to shock him; I should like your opinion first.'

The mists rose in Mr Salter's brain; a word or two loomed up and was lost again... 'Willis's rooms... "Pussy" Gresham... Romano's... believe it or not fifteen thousand pounds...' Then all was silence.

When Mr Salter awoke he was cold and stiff and fully dressed except for his shoes; the candle was burned out. Autumn dawn glimmered in the window and Priscilla Boot, in riding habit, was ransacking the wardrobe for a lost tie.

****

The Managing Editor of the Beast was not easily moved to pity. 'I say, Salter,' he said, almost reverently, 'you look terrible.'

'Yes,' said Mr Salter lowering himself awkwardly into a chair, 'that's the only word for it.'

'These heavy drinking country squires, eh?'

'No. It wasn't that.'

'Have you got Boot?'

'Yes and no. Have you?'

'Yes and no. He signed all right.'

'So did mine. But he won't come to the banquet.'

'I've sent my Boot off to the Antarctic. He said he had to go abroad at once. Apparently some woman is pursuing him.'

'My Boot,' said Mr Salter, 'is afraid of losing the esteem of his old nurse.'

'Women,' said the managing editor.

One thought was in both men's mind. 'What are we going to say to Lord Copper?'

The social secretary, whom they went to consult, was far from helpful.

'Lord Copper is looking forward very much to his speech,' she said. 'He has been rehearsing it all the afternoon.'

'You could rewrite it a little,' said the managing editor.

'"Even in the moment of triumph, duty called. Here today, gone tomorrow... honouring the empty chair... the high adventure of modern journalism..."' But even as he spoke, his voice faltered.

'No,' said the social secretary. 'That is not the kind of speech Lord Copper intends to make. You can hear him, in there, now.' A dull booming sound, like breakers on shingle rose and fell beyond the veneered walnut doors. 'He's getting it by heart,' she added.

The two editors went sadly back to their own quarters.

'I've worked with the Megalopolitan, one way and another, for fifteen years,' said Mr Salter. 'I've got a wife to consider.'

'You at least might get other employment,' said the managing editor. 'You've been educated. There's nothing in the world I'm fit to do except edit the Beast.'

'It was your fault in the first place for engaging Boot at all. He wasn't a foreign page man.'

'You sent him to Ishmaelia.'

'I wanted to sack him. You made him a hero. You made an ass of him. It was you who thought of that article which upset him.'

'You encouraged Lord Copper to give him a knighthood.'

'You encouraged the banquet.'

'We were both at fault,' said the managing editor. 'But there's no point in our both suffering. Let's toss for who takes the blame.'

The coin spun in the air, fell and rolled away out of sight.

'A Boot, a Boot, my kingdom for a Boot'.

Mr Salter was on his knees, searching, when the Features Editor looked in.

'Do either of you know anything about an old chap called Boot?' he asked. 'I can't get him out of my room. He's been sitting there telling me dirty stories since I got back from lunch. Says Salter sent for him.'

'Saved.'

'Bring him in.'

'And bring a contract form with him.'

And Uncle Theodore was led in, shedding Edwardian light and warmth in that dingy room.