This advantage was one of the few which the three children had gained from their shapeless and traditionless upbringing. They slipped easily from world to world, carried by this lack of conventional ideas and their own tough middle-class stock; and did not waste a lot of valuable energy in deploring the fact that A was not a lady and B was not virtuous.

As Sophia would meditatively say, ‘I am not always worrying because a tortoise isn’t a guinea pig and wanting it to be. I say, “Praise be to Allah for the diversity of his creatures.”’ And so far as it were possible, the three applied this outlook to human beings.

So Francis was spared the agonies of snobbery in the offices of Graby & Bryant; and had more energy for making tea and answering the telephone; and by Monday evening the five typists had decided he was quite crackers and as fresh as they make them, but rather – at least, he would have been if he had not been a kid and an office boy at that – rather attractive.

Of course they did not betray this opinion to Francis. They all, from Lily Spain, aged seventeen and three-quarters, to Miss Ulick, aged thirty-eight and a half, at first set out to snub him.

Lily Spain received the full shock of Francis’s personality when she arrived on that first Monday morning at a quarter to nine. Miss Ulick, acting on instructions from Mr Graby, insisted on Miss Spain getting there a quarter of an hour earlier than the other four. This was because Miss Spain was a junior typist. There was no other reason. She was made to do it because there is a wholesome instinct in the elderly to make the young do what they do not like doing. This is supposed, though no one has ever given satisfying reasons for the supposition, to be good for them.

This extra fifteen minutes added on to her working day was a source of the bitterest grievance to Miss Spain. She thought about it a great deal. She bored her friends by talking about it. ‘Oh, shut up, do, misery!’ was a familiar cry in her ears and so was ‘Put a sock in it, girl, for pity’s sake!’

During the weekends, when she had quite a nice time, she almost forgot about that beastly quarter to nine business, but on Sunday night the full injustice of it struck her afresh, added to the horrible certainty that tomorrow would be Monday morning; and as a result she walked into the office, where Francis was diligently polishing the brass rim of the fireguard with a duster, in an extremely bad temper.

Girl … flashed over Francis, as he looked up and met her dark, sulky, surprised eyes with his own fierce light-blue ones. He did not stop polishing the fender, but smiled at her with his teeth shut together (an odd habit of his when he was nervous) and said ‘Good morning.’