‘And what’s your idea of what I want?’ Charles demanded brusquely. He expected Mr. Blearney to come out with some sentimental irrelevance on the lines of ‘You’re a vagabond at heart like all of us, you need the colour and variety, grand troupers, kind hearts beneath the motley.’ He stared challengingly across the hearth-rug.

‘What do you think I want?’ he repeated.

‘Neutrality,’ said Mr. Blearney calmly and without pausing to take thought.

Charles looked at him in silence.

‘Go on, partner, tell me it isn’t true, if you can,’ said Mr. Blearney. ‘It’s the type who wants neutrality who comes into our racket. Doesn’t want to take sides in all the silly pettiness that goes on. Doesn’t want to spend his time scratching and being scratched. Wants to live his own life.’

Charles was humbled. The man understood him perfectly. His very choice of a word was absolutely right. So far, he had set himself target after target that had proved out of reach: econo­mically, the quest for self-sufficient poverty; socially, for unmolested obscurity; emotionally, first for a grand passion and then for a limited and defined contentment. And now he valued his niche simply because it gave him the means, through his new wealth, to put himself beyond the struggle, and the leisure to meditate sufficiently to keep him on his guard against his own folly.

‘By the way, there was a letter for you downstairs, partner,’ said Mr. Blearney, moving easily away from the subject now that he had finished with it, ‘so I brought it up.’

Charles opened the envelope. A thick, blue-tinted document and a typewritten letter.

‘My dear Lumley,

In sending you this three-year contract, which I hope you will sign, I am happy to say how much I have come to appreciate your work during the months you have been with me. You are a valuable counterweight to the more (shall I say?) volatile elements in my team, and I have come to feel that I definitely need your presence. Perhaps you would be good enough to treat this contract as confidential, as I have so far not felt able to offer similar terms to any of your colleagues.

With my congratulations on your work, and wishes for many years of fruitful collaboration,

Yours sincerely,

Terence Frush’

‘The glasses and whisky are in that cupboard, Arthur,’ Charles said. ‘Would you get them out? I feel a bit queer.’

‘Nothing the matter, I hope, partner?’ Mr. Blearney asked as he poured out four glasses of whisky.

‘The reverse, the reverse,’ said Charles faintly. ‘I’m permanent. He’s sent me a contract to sign.’

‘And about time too,’ shouted his guest joyfully. ‘Well! Well! And a very good excuse for drinking this stuff at five o’clock in the afternoon!’

They drained their first and began slowly on their second, in accordance with Mr. Blearney’s principles.