“Very good. Well understood,” Rupert said hurriedly. “A man like you is not to be tempted by food and wine. I had rather been thinking you might have been starved over this last bit of something more essential to your well-being. A convivial and uncensored exchange of views and experience between equal minds? Intelligent conversation! You could tell us how—and, perhaps more pertinently, why—you defeated the Zulus. Or was it the Boers?” he finished with an engaging smile.

His remark had certainly caught the man’s attention. Rupert flinched at the sharpness of the glare launched in his direction. Two deadly, steel-grey eyes locked on to his with the menace of a Lee Metford or whatever blunderbusses those pre–Great War riflemen had used. Aware that he had said something deeply annoying, Rupert looked away, bit his lip and came to a decision. “Listen carefully.” He could not prevent himself from looking shiftily to the right and left to ensure they were not being overheard. “Should you change your mind, present yourself on the steps of the Wren Chapel in Trumpington Street at six this evening and show this card to the man who will greet you.”

Ignoring the man’s smile of disbelief and the scathing comments of the “Coo, er! What? No password? Shall I carry a copy of the Times under my left arm and a carnation in my teeth?” style, he slipped the card back into the tramp’s hand and pressed on. A dislike and suspicion of this subject was taking hold in Rupert’s normally insensitive bosom. He tried, with not much success, to hold back his distaste and his growing desire to see the man squirm. “Come exactly as you are. We don’t stand on ceremony. Though you may well, er, feel more comfortable in company if you were to spend this sixpence at the slipper baths.” He produced a handful of change from the bottom of his sleeve, selected a sixpenny coin and handed it over.

Too late, Rupert sensed that he had again misjudged the situation. The tramp, icily polite, took the coin and looked at it carefully. “I usually find the fee for a hot bath including soap and towel on a Friday afternoon is twopence. Extra-special Derbac nit soap costs a further penny. Why not? Let’s push the boat out! I’m sure delousing is a prerequisite for the entertainment on offer. So—that’ll be threepence change.” He bent and picked up three pennies from the pavement and put them in Rupert’s hand.

The don flinched at the insult and his hand quivered at the contact with coins from the gutter, but he decided to go down fighting, with his flag—though beginning to look a bit tattered—still flying.