Barney grinned suddenly. 'This sounds more fun than getting a blowsy old woman to peer into a crystal. Did the lovely prove a good oracle?'

'Yes, she prophesied all right. In fact, so plausibly that she shook poor Ruddy to his buttoned boots. She described the chap who was supposed to be going to do him dirt, and unmistakably she was seeing young Sir Hamish McFadden.'

'The chap whose father left him about ten million pounds worth of shipping, and is now regarded as quite a big shot among the Socialist intelligentsia?'

'That's right. But even if he is ass enough to believe in their old fashioned theories, he at least has the sense to realize the Communist danger, and he has been spending quite a lot of money lately to finance the campaigns of honest Trade Unionists like Ruddy, who want to oust the Reds. Ruddy was going down to lunch with him at his place in Kent last Sunday, to fix the final details about I.T.V. appearances, leaflets, and other anti-Communist propaganda for which Sir Hamish is footing the bill. But the prophecy decided Ruddy to call his visit off.'

'So that's how they worked it.' Barney made a grimace. 'I suppose by Monday Ruddy and Sir Hamish had quarrelled violently and, after the break, Ruddy felt that, without the financial support he had been promised, he no longer stood a chance?'

'Good Lord, no! With, or without Sir Hamish, Ruddy could still romp home. He has thrown his hand in on personal grounds: on account of his family. The lovely oracle predicted for him, despite everything, a smashing victory. She even got so enthusiastic about it that, although she was as naked as when her mother tbore her, she suddenly sat up in bed and threw an arm round his neck. It was at that moment that from some camouflaged point of vantage someone took a photograph of them.'

'Blackmail!' exclaimed Barney.

'That's it. On Monday a man who was a complete stranger to Ruddy brought him a copy, gave it to him and said: 'We thought you might like to have this as a souvenir. We have plenty more and either you lay off standing for Secretary-General, or your wife gets one tomorrow.'

'What swine these people are!'

'Of course. Communists are of two kinds only. Gadarene Swine whose wits have been taken from them so that they rush headlong down the slope to their own destruction, and ordinary voracious swine who, if you were standing in their sty, had a heart-attack and fell among them, would instantly set upon and devour you - just as did the pigs in T. F. Powys' novel, "Mr. Tasker's Gods".'

'I know, Sir. But this sort of thing really is frightful. Did poor old Ruddy cave in right away?'