‘After that we shall have to see about fixing things with your authorities at Oxford.’

‘I told them to call my solicitors,’ said Mulcaster, ‘and they refused. They’ve put themselves hopelessly in the wrong, and I don’t see why they should get away with it.’

‘For heaven’s sake don’t start any kind of argument. Just plead guilty and pay up. Understand?’

Mulcaster grumbled but submitted.

Everything happened at court as Rex had predicted. At half past ten we stood in Bow Street, Mulcaster and I free men, Sebastian bound over to appear in a week’s time. Mulcaster had kept silent about his grievance; he and I were admonished and fined five shillings each and fifteen shillings costs. Mulcaster was becoming rather irksome to us, and it was with relief that we heard his plea of other business in London. The barrister bustled off and Sebastian and I were left alone and disconsolate.

‘I suppose mummy’s got to hear about it,’ he said. ‘Damn, damn, damn! It’s cold. I won’t go home. I’ve nowhere to go. Let’s just slip back to Oxford and wait for them to bother us.’

The raffish habitués of the police court came and went, up and down the steps; still we stood on the windy corner, undecided.

‘Why not get hold of Julia?’

‘I might go abroad.’

‘My dear Sebastian, you’ll only be given a talking-to and fined a few pounds.’

‘Yes, but it’s all the bother – mummy and Bridey and all the family and the dons. I’d sooner go to prison. If I just slip away abroad they can’t get me back, can they? That’s what people do when the police are after them. I know mummy will make it seem she has to bear the whole brunt of the business.’

‘Let’s telephone Julia and get her to meet us somewhere and talk it over.’

We met at Gunter’s in Berkeley Square. Julia, like most women then, wore a green hat pulled down to her eyes with a diamond arrow in it; she had a small dog under her arm, three-quarters buried in the fur of her coat. She greeted us with an unusual show of interest.

‘Well, you are a pair of pickles; I must say you look remarkably well on it. The only time I got tight I was paralysed all the next day. I do think you might have taken me with you. The ball was positively lethal, and I’ve always longed to go to the Old Hundredth. No one will ever take me. Is it heaven?’

‘So you know all about that, too?’

‘Rex telephoned me this morning and told me everything. What were your girl friends like?’

‘Don’t be prurient,’ said Sebastian.

‘Mine was like a skull.’

‘Mine was like a consumptive.’

‘Goodness.’ It had clearly raised us in Julia’s estimation that we had been out with women; to her they were the point of interest.

‘Does mummy know?’

‘Not about your skulls and consumptives. She knows you were in the clink. I told her. She was divine about it, of course. You know anything Uncle Ned did was always perfect, and he got locked up once for taking a bear into one of Lloyd George’s meetings, so she really feels quite human about the whole thing. She wants you both to lunch with her.’