‘I’ll just bet you were,’ said Johanna brightly.

George’s face turned a sort of pale shade of black; he took it rather hard.

‘The French were on our side, George,’ I reminded him. ‘This last time, I mean.’

‘You will stay to lunch, won’t you, George?’ said Johanna.

He couldn’t, he had another appointment, he’d already had luncheon, he never ate luncheon, Sonia was expecting him for luncheon, he had a train to catch. There are no trains on Jersey, of course: I think he just wanted to go and kick something. It’s all to do with a place called Dakar, for some reason.

Luncheon was rather awful at first: it was the cook’s day off and therefore Jock had the duty and you could see that he didn’t much relish waiting on Fr Tichborne. He served soup to Johanna, then, despite my coughs and glares, to me. I gave Tichborne an apologetic grimace. His plate of soup arrived quite three minutes later.

‘Dash it, Jock,’ I snapped, ‘your thumb is in Fr Tichborne’s soup!’

‘’S all right, Mr Charlie, it ain’t hot.’ Tichborne frowned at me and shook his head, so I let it pass.

The next thing was kidneys wrapped in bacon and stuffed into baked potatoes. Quite delicious, except for Tichborne’s, which was small, late and badly burned.

Really angry now, I opened my mouth to admonish Jock severely, but Tichborne raised his hand.

‘Jock,’ he said in a quiet, gentle voice, ‘once is happen-stance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. By that I mean that if you once more disgrace Mrs Mortdecai in this shabby way I shall take you out into the garden and punch your nose quite flat.’

An awful silence fell. Johanna’s eyes were open, as was my mouth. Jock started to swell like a bull-frog. Fr Tichborne poured himself a glass of water.

‘Gaw blimey!’ said Jock at last.

‘Guard your tongue!’ commanded the little priest in a voice of thunder. ‘The words you have just uttered mean “God blind me” – you have already lost the sight of one eye: be very careful Whom you invoke to pluck out its fellow.’

I glanced up: no plaster was falling from the ceiling.

The awful silence went on.

Finally Jock nodded and vanished into the kitchen. He emerged and laid a large and beautiful kidney in front of Fr Tichborne.

‘You better have mine,’ he said. ‘Sir.’

When the green baize door had closed behind him, Johanna said, ‘Golly.’

Fr Tichborne said, ‘I believe I’ve made a friend.’

I said, ‘You must come and stay often.’