‘Rather,’ said Harry.

He was glad to think that people had liked to see his father. Whenever he thought about his father, pity came into his heart. He had loved him and in a way which he could not explain looked up to him. Sophia and Francis were coldly angry with his father’s memory; he could not feel thus.

He knew, of course, that his father had been a bad man, who had brought his children up in a way that would make life difficult for them. But he could not resent this when he remembered his father’s vitality, his power to charm, his sudden bursts of useless generosity, his beautiful soft singing voice which used to delight Harry when he was a little boy and which came so strangely from the throat of such a huge man, his power to make the piano sing too, gently and sweetly, as though the notes loved the touch of his blunt short fingers. Harry abruptly turned his mind from memories.

And then, because it was four o’clock, Mr Marriot’s tea and three small, severe ginger biscuits were brought in, and Uncle Preston and Harry declined to share them with him, and the interview was over.

The two went out into the lit winter dusk of Cannon Street.

Harry, of course, managed to find a taxi, as he would have done if suddenly dropped in the midst of a Tibetan steppe, and was borne away to meet Edward Sweeting, waving cheerfully at Uncle Preston who was very cross because he was planning a nice tea with a poached egg and more discussion about family affairs.

He ate it miserably by himself in a Lyons, wishing that Looie were there to listen to him.

He was extremely worried about the children. It was very irritating that Harry and Francis refused to be doctors. It was irritating that they wanted to sell the practice, when they might have put in a locum indefinitely and kept the practice’s earnings as a steady income. And it was more than irritating, it was alarming to hear from Mr Marriot that the practice would not bring in much money while they were waiting to find a buyer for it.

Enbury Fields was such a poor district that most of Dr Garden’s patients could not afford to pay more than one and sixpence or half a crown a visit; and when the salary of Dr Casey and the dispenser, and the rent, and other expenses had been paid, there would not be much money to repay to Mr Marriot what he would advance to Harry. And the value of the practice would decrease too. It was all most worrying.

Dr Garden was not on the Panel. He had refused to be. He had resented the Panel and suspected it as an attempt to ‘run’ him by the Government. He said that he gave twice as much attention, care and intelligence to a patient because he was not expected to do so by any bloody Government, and though the comfortable, regular cheques from the Panel which other doctors had may have tempted him, he would never change his views. These Panel cheques would have made a much more handsome income from the practice, and Uncle Preston was sorry that they were not coming in.