Mr Percy Buckham has been described in Boost, the advertisers’ advertiser, as one of the live wires of the wireless world. This paradox meant that Percy Buckham, the managing director of the firm which made the portable wireless-set known all over Great Britain as Buckham’s Little Songster, spent a very considerable sum annually on advertising. It is perhaps superfluous to describe him. Who does not know those dark compelling eyes, that out-thrust chin, that masterful mouth and concentrated frown beneath the curly hair of a he-man with the heart of a boy? No matter the pages of what paper you turn you will not find it easy to escape Buckham’s talks under the heading Lend me Tour Ears. He is as anxious to borrow the ears of readers of The New Statesman as those of Secrets and Flame that he may return them filled with facts about his Little Songster.

‘Buy Buckham’s Little Songster and carry the world round with you in one hand.’ ‘The Four B’s of Music—Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Buckham.’ ‘Wouldn’t it give you a thrill if Mr Baldwin walked into your room and talked to you? Buckham’s Little Songster will bring Mr Baldwin into your room.’ ‘Have you ever dreamed that the world’s great singers sang for you alone? Buckham’s Little Songster will make your dream come true.’ ‘Henry Hall’s Band will play hikers up the steepest hill if they carry Buckham’s Little Songster in their knapsacks.’

It would be wrong, very wrong, to connect Percy Buckham’s interest in the National Union of Hikers with his interest in the Little Songster. He presided as enthusiastically over the hiker without a Little Songster as over the one who never hiked four miles without one. On the other hand, it would be dishonest not to admit that his desire to avenge the treatment of the sixteen members of the N.U.H. was stimulated to the point of fury by the news that Ben Nevis had emptied both barrels of his gun into Tom Camidge’s Little Songster.

“Don’t prosecute, Tom,” he urged. “I’ll give you another Little Songster. This has become a personal matter for me. I’m in with you over this up to the hilt. I’m going to show this Highland bully what it means to put Percy Buckham against him. We’ll carry the war into the enemy’s country, Prew. I hope Lord Buntingdon will support us.”

So on this evening the creator of the Little Songster was waiting anxiously in his house on Primrose Hill for news of this support.