And so the very earliest pages of the professor’s biography seemed likely to be rather bare of anecdotes: though there was no reason, Froulish often reminded himself, why he should not invent a few in later life. But at the University everything had been easier. The machinery of self-display was so much more accessible; within three weeks of his arrival he had managed to get himself talked about, and by his second term he was a recog­nized eccentric. And all done so easily! merely by a few random pantomime tricks, such as carrying a grey parrot in a cage wherever he went, wearing a bowler hat indoors, standing motion­less for hours on end in the exact centre of the quadrangle, and so forth. His contemporaries, being typical undergraduates and therefore inhabitants of a hinterland of indecision, had scoffed readily enough, but had soon formed the habit of accepting him at his face-value, listening almost respectfully when he read papers to literary societies on such topics as ‘The Alleged Inversion of Surrealist Psychology’. In short, he had become a figure. Looking now at Froulish’s fat, dough-coloured face and his twitching hands, Charles realized for the first time the extent to which he, too, had been hoodwinked. Without ever pausing to think it out, he had accepted the legend of Froulish’s genius for years, and now it was too late to change. Out of the abandoned tangle of his earlier life, he could at least pluck a ready-made attitude to this fellow-creature, which was less artificial than the attempt to see him as if for the first time.

And so he relapsed, mechanically, into the tone of half-jocular admiration which throughout the years he had reserved for his conversations with Edwin Froulish, as he said:

‘Why, hello. I didn’t expect to see you in this place. Looking for local colour, I suppose?’

‘We can’t talk here,’ Froulish muttered furtively, ignoring the question. ‘Let’s—’ his face contorted and he clutched at his right ear—‘go and have a drink somewhere. Preferably somewhere quiet.’

Once in the bar, Froulish made straight for the darkest corner and slumped down, leaving Charles to get the drinks. Betraying no surprise at this—and, indeed, feeling none—Charles carried over two watery pints and set them down. The interview was free to begin.

‘You asked me what I was doing here,’ muttered Froulish in the intervals of gulping at his beer with a characteristic mixture of avidity and distaste. ‘Of course I’m not looking for local colour—I’m not that kind of novelist, I don’t go in for reactionary photo­graphic stuff.’