He carried his coffee to Sam’s table. “I want your advice,” he said. He wanted information, not advice, but people were sometimes reluctant to share information, whereas they were always flattered to be asked for advice.

Sam was wearing a herringbone jacket with a tie and smoking a pipe: perhaps he wanted to look older. “Take a seat,” he said, folding the paper he had been reading.

Jasper sat down. His relationship with Sam was awkward. They had been rivals for the post of editor, and Sam had won. Jasper had concealed his resentment, and Sam had made him news editor. They had become colleagues, but not friends. “I want to be next year’s editor,” Jasper said. He hoped that Sam would help him, either because he was the right man for the job—which he was—or out of guilt.

“That’s up to Lord Jane,” said Sam evasively. Jane was provost of the college.

“Lord Jane will ask your opinion.”

“There’s a whole appointment committee.”

“But you and the provost are the members who count.”

Sam did not argue with that. “So you want my advice.”

“Who else is in the running?”

“Toby, obviously.”

“Really?” Toby Jenkins was the features editor, a plodder who had commissioned a dull series of worthy articles about the work of university officials such as the registrar and the treasurer.

“He will apply.”

Sam himself had got the job partly because of the distinguished journalists among his relations. Lord Jane was impressed by such connections. This irritated Jasper, but he did not mention it.

Jasper said: “Toby’s stuff is pedestrian.”

“He’s an accurate reporter, if unimaginative.”

Jasper recognized this remark as a dig at himself. He was the opposite of Toby. He prized sensation over accuracy. In his reports a scuffle always became a fight, a plan was a conspiracy, and a slip of the tongue was never less than a blatant lie. He knew that people read newspapers for excitement, not information.

Cakebread added: “And he did write that piece about rats in the refectory.”

“So he did.” Jasper had forgotten. The article had caused uproar. It had been luck, really: Toby’s father worked for the local council and knew about the efforts of the pest control department to eradicate vermin in the eighteenth-century cellars of St. Julian’s College. Nevertheless the article had secured the job of features editor for Toby, who had written nothing half as good since. “So I need a scoop,” Jasper said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps.”

“You mean, like, revealing that the provost is skimming off university funds to pay his gambling debts.”

“I doubt that Lord Jane gambles.” Sam did not have a great sense of humor.

Jasper thought about Lloyd Williams. Might he provide some kind of tip-off? Lloyd was frightfully discreet, unfortunately.

Then he thought of Evie. She had applied to attend the Irving School of Drama, which was part of St. Julian’s College, so she was of interest to the student newspaper. She had just got her first acting job, in a film called All Around Miranda. And she was going out with Hank Remington, of the Kords. Perhaps . . .