‘Quiet, please,’ said Mr. Frush. When the young man with the moustache had finished his report, it was Froulish’s turn, and Mr. Frush asked him, ‘What about the seamy side of things this week?’

‘Well, they seem to have come round to the one about the lace curtains. That’s in Central London, of course. We really need another man for the Provinces.’

‘No need to worry about that,’ said Mr. Frush easily. ‘After all, remember that we’re the only team who do any research at all in that line. The rest simply rely on what they happen to pick up.’

‘Would you believe it,’ said the radio duty man earnestly, ‘but Hudson’s gang are still using the brass monkey. You’d hardly credit it.’

‘Some of these people,’ said Mr. Frush, shaking his head gravely, ‘would take money out of a blind man’s tin.’

‘And then cut the string of his dog,’ said Froulish with a high-pitched laugh: he was very nervous.

‘All right, hold it, Edwin,’ said Mr. Frush, looking at him sternly. ‘We haven’t started on the gags yet. And when we do, there’s no need to take them out of Noah’s ark.’

‘It wasn’t a gag; I was serious,’ said the man of letters earnestly.

‘Well, now, to business,’ said Mr. Frush. ‘The theme of the next show is going to be baby-sitting. I estimate that we shall need gags in the following proportion: six of the old-fashioned vulgar type, about nappies and that sort of thing; then, I should say, about twelve turning on the precocity of the elder child who’s also left at home while the parents go out; five husband-and-wife ones before they set out; of the remaining twenty-one, fifteen about his ignorance of how to handle the baby—and remember, they’re not to overlap with the six nappy ones: I’m thinking of things about feeding it, not being able to understand what it says, that sort of line—and as for the remaining six, they can be off the main theme. We needn’t be too perfectionist.’

‘Can we bring in anything about breast-feeding?’ one of the team asked.

‘Definitely not,’ said Mr. Frush weightily. ‘Remember, we’ve got a reputation to keep up.’

‘You’ll want the usual three highbrow ones, I suppose,’ put in a man wearing a velvet jacket and with hair growing down the sides of his face.

‘That’s our culture man,’ Froulish whispered to Charles. ‘Eton and Trinity.’

‘Now switch that machine on and let’s get weaving,’ said Mr. Frush. One of the men walked across and switched on the tape recorder. Before resuming his seat he took a bottle of whisky and seven glasses from a cupboard on the wall, and poured everyone present a stiff drink.

‘Ready? OFF!’ Terence Frush roared with sudden violence.