As Agnes closed the door behind her he looked rather as if he had been thrust into a cage of wild animals without chance of escape. David remembered his manners and Peter, who was sitting on the hearthrug leaning against his legs, suddenly found herself pushed forward as he jumped to his feet.

"Good afternoon, sir. Won't you come close to the fire? There's plenty of room."

Jon hauled himself off the sofa.

"Do you think you could stand the strain of being introduced to us all, sir? There's rather a lot of us to remember, but Agnes says you are going to be here for a few days and so are we, so perhaps we'd better try and get it over."

Mr Cantor started and stepped forward under the light.

"Bless my soul!" he said, in a strangely childlike voice. "Good gracious! What a variety of youngsters to be sure. Charming scene! Charming... Thank you very much, my boy. May I be presented to the young ladies first?"

Peter did not care much for this sort of thing and acknowledged the introduction rather coldly. Penny was charming - so charming that she patted the vacant position on the sofa and invited Mr Cantor to sit by her. Jenny just did not like him and made no effort to hide her feelings. Tom seemed to share the same opinion, and the twins were pretty confident of the effect they would have on the newcomer when their turn came. But on this occasion they were disappointed, because Mr Cantor looked at them both very carefully the first time and then, after being merely polite, seemed to lose all interest in them.

David noticed this and made a mental note to remind the twins not to try and get their own back. He had seen the results of non-co-operation with Dickie and Mary too often not to be nervous now.

After he had recovered his composure a little Mr Cantor began to enjoy himself, and when Agnes wheeled the tea-trolley into the room ten minutes later she was relieved to see how well he had settled down, and so stopped worrying about the new guest.

But Peter could not make him out. Several times during tea she thought she caught him looking at one or other of them rather keenly when he thought that he was not being watched, and she had the strange feeling, too, that he was pretending to be someone else. Peter knew that sometimes she had odd feelings about people and things. But she shrugged away her suspicion and asked, "I wish you would tell us something about Clun, Mr Cantor."

Mr Cantor turned to his questioner.