To my surprise, I found the Common Room already crowded. Curiosity, I suppose—besides which there’s not a lot of space when all the staff get together, and, today of all days, no one wanted to miss the chance of a ringside seat.

My favorite chair was unoccupied. Second from the left, under the clock, at a comfortable angle of sixty degrees. Years of judicious lounging have molded that chair to my exact measurements, and it will take more than a change of Head to affect its contours. I poured a cup of tea from the urn and settled in happily.

Eric Scoones was already there. My colleague for over thirty years, and a friend since childhood, he has the same concerns as I—except that, being a Modern Linguist, he is considered more of an asset to the department, and therefore feels himself to be in a superior position to mine—a fact he likes to emphasize when he is feeling insecure, which, to be fair, is most of the time.

“Morning, Straitley.”

“Morning, Scoones.”

The years have left their mark on us all, but on Eric Scoones they have settled like barnacles. The boy I knew at eleven years old—small, clever enough to have skipped a School year, mischievous and quick to flee in the face of trouble—has become a brontosaur; a large, slow half Centurion with a drinker’s nose and an alarming tendency to wheeze when climbing stairs. The mischievous boy has become a man who sees every setback as a direct blow from the Almighty. A bitter man, who believes that Life has robbed him of pleasures as yet unspecified, and looks upon the success of his friends as a personal defeat. And yet, I’m fond of the old ass, as I believe he is fond of me.

“Good holiday, Straitley?”

Even after so many years, he calls me by my surname, just as he did when we were boys, more than fifty years ago.

I gave a noncommittal shrug. “I’m not sure holidays are my cup of tea. Too stressful.”

Eric gave me a look of weary superiority. “I wouldn’t have thought you could ever be stressed. Not with your workload.”