‘He never writes to me,’ said Auntie Loo, going carefully down the slippery steps into the fog in the wake of Uncle Preston and the umbrella. ‘Boys don’t get much time, you know.’

And as she busily pulled her bunchy coat round herself she suppressed, as she had suppressed numberless times in the last thirty odd years, a thought which had come into her mind, like a sad, dim bell tolling, of her own little boy who had died when he was three years old.

‘A great writer,’ said Aunt Grace sentimentally. ‘Such a wonderful life, I always think. Such opportunity for doing good.’

Auntie Loo looked at her. What a goose Gracie is, thought Auntie Loo, nodding in placid agreement with the goose’s remark.

CHAPTER VII

Harry’s prophecy came true. Bloody Budgy’s company was told it could go home, if it had the fare to do so, on the Saturday morning following the reading of the will, and Harry came back to London on Monday in the car of a middle-aged widow with whom he had made friends in Wolverhampton, thus saving his fare.

The widow wanted to go on being with Harry when once they got to London, but he disposed of her; and went to a telephone box and called Edward Sweeting, who lived some few miles out of town.

Emily, Edward’s new and lovely wife, answered the telephone. She told him that Edward would be away playing football until late that evening, but that Harry must come down and stay with them until he could find a job.

‘Oh, I say, that’s marvellous of you, Emily! But are you sure it’s all right? Sure the beloved old figure in the shabby dressing gown won’t be butting in or anything? I expect I could go and stay with one of my tatty old aunts or something, you know.’

‘God, you don’t want to do that,’ said the far-off but clear and fashionable voice of Emily, who combined the delicate colouring and appearance of a Dresden china figurine with the tenacity and discipline of a Roman legion on the march. ‘You come down here to us; we’d love to have you.’

So Harry went off to a snack bar called Pip’s to have a bite before catching a train to Taplow, where the Sweetings lived.

He was thinking gratefully what bricks Edward and Emily were.

Edward came of a theatrical family whose members had played in England since the ’fifties of the last century; he was five or six years older than Harry, a dark, slender and gifted young man, whose recent success had been partly due to talent and hard work, and partly due to his passion for the stage, which made him restless and unhappy unless he was acting.

It is doubtful whether anyone can succeed in any profession or art without this passion for their work. Unfortunately the passion does not always guarantee the success, but it is fairly safe to say that the success never comes without it.