Next day I saw my agent at his office and did a lot of nodding. He wanted to know if I had anything coming along and I said yes but I’d sooner not discuss it as discussion can sometimes harden an outline—the usual stuff—and he also nodded and I saw how anxious he was to get rid of me. Wilfred Barclay won’t do much more, you know. He’s all washed up and living on his rents. He’s gone all indifferent. Maybe it’s time we thought about a collected edition. I went back to the Random and spent the day in bed, sleeping—actually sleeping, peacefully, like a babe as they say, inaccurate as usual. I got up round about five o’clock and sat in the snakepit, waiting. Presently Jonquil came in and told me that Professor Tucker was outside. I was surprised she hadn’t told him to go right in but all was made clear when I went out to the lobby. He was squatting on the floor with his back against the grandfather clock. His front was open to the navel if you could have detected that spot among the curls but a large gold necklace lay among the thickets and every kind of charm hung from it—the cross of Lorraine, the Eye of Osiris, the Ankh, a swastika the right way round, the pentacle and a dozen others I couldn’t recognize. As I came into the lobby, Rick put his tongue out and grinned and barked. I was a little worried that he was up the wall for good and all which though it would solve things in the long run would pose some immediate problems. But after his initial bark he got up and dusted the Random off his seat.

“Wilf, sir, you’re looking great!”

“Tell me how.”

“Just great!”

He laughed excitedly like a kid that’s been promised, yes, today we really will go on a picnic. He was so young. He was so young-looking. Forty. Maybe forty-five.

“And you look great, Rick, just great. Come along.”

I led the way to the bar and Rick followed, chiming quietly like a very superior carriage clock.

“A drink or two first, Rick, then dinner. You don’t mind eating here? The food is reasonable and the drink first-class.”

Rick was gazing round him, making a mental note of all the Eng. Lit. faces on the walls. He identified them one after another with little cries of triumph.

“But you’re not there, Wilf!”

“Not dead yet. Give me time.”

We took our drinks back to the snakepit.

“The paper, Wilf. The agreement—”

“After dinner, Rick, there’s a good chap.”

“It’s been so long now—can I phone from here?”

“Of course.”

“I’m so anxious to telephone the good news to Mr Halliday. He will be delighted. You like my necklace? To it I attribute the recent, how to say, change in my, my fortunes—”

“My dear Rick, you speak like an Englishman! Yes, I do like your necklace. Doesn’t it ever get in the soup?”