“I’ll have to dash, Mr. Hillington. I’ll take the matter up with Mr. Brown, believe me.”

“Thank you,” he said. “There’s just one thing though.” He looked at the computer almost lovingly. “I’m not complaining about the machine. It’s wonderful, it really is, Mr. Lampton.”

“So is an abacus,” I said.

“I don’t follow you, Mr. Lampton.”

“We couldn’t do anything about an electronic brain,” I said. “I’m only an accountant. But abacuses are easy.”

“I see what you mean,” he said.

“Good. Now, don’t worry any more. We’ll soon get the beads shuttling up and down again.”

“What’s that about beads?” Ralph Hethersett asked, seeming to emanate from behind Hillington.

“Nothing of any consequence.” He was wearing a light fawn suit in hounds-tooth check; it looked more suitable for the golf-course than a steelworks. Although I had more right to be in the Computer Room than he had, he somehow made me feel as if it were no longer part of A. Z. Brown and Co. but a room in a club of which I was not a member.

“I’ve just been telling Mr. Lampton my troubles,” Hillington said. There was an expression on his face which might have been fear. “I didn’t hear you come in, Mr. Hethersett. Excuse me.” He went over to the filing cabinet at the far end of the room and began to talk in a low voice to the girl who was sitting at the desk beside it.

“I pad about the place like some great jungle beast,” Hethersett said. “Great muscles rippling, great nose twitching . . . Actually, once again your father-in-law has sent me home empty-­handed. Whenever the Board has a bright idea that my papa knows damned well the customer won’t wear, my papa always agrees with them and then sends me. He doesn’t hold with sending the clever ones. Says it discourages them and wastes their precious stock of self-confidence. Acute psychologist, my papa. Even finds a use for fools like me.” He yawned. “Well, I’d better have a peep at this clever little machine, hadn’t I? Do you think that chap with all the fountain pens will show me round?”

I glanced at Hillington who seemed to have moved even closer to the girl by the filing cabinet. I couldn’t see her face but she had a long slender neck and a great deal of black hair; from the way she carried her head I could tell that she was very young.

“He’s busy now,” I said. “But I’m sure he’ll tear himself away for you. If you really want to know about the thing . . . Haven’t you got one at your place?”

“Not the same kind,” he said. “Ours goes click-click-click-clickety and yours goes clickety-click-clickety-click. Highly signi­ficant.” He strolled over to Hillington. “I’ll be seeing you, old man,” he called to me over his shoulder.