He could write of the enormous ovation they received in Washington, and the preparations for the corresponding welcome rally in New York. He could write of his own privileged position, living in the same hotel with the family, sharing their private as well as their public life. He could not add that the hotel bills must be fantastic, or that Captain Charles Bannister now had a valet, thirty-seven suits, and a complexion like a badly-executed sunset.

But though there was much that would never be set down in print, this did not stop him observing and correlating the facts. He was far too good a reporter to miss the likely items, even though they would not be used this side of the Last Trump. There were always things you noted down, although you knew they would never see the printed page, and never be heard of outside the local Press Club bar. A president getting drunk, a queen reproving her husband, someone dropping the Sword of Stalingrad – these were items too hot to print, in the prevailing climate, but not too hot to file away. During the time he spent with the Esther Costello organization – that was how it must now be phrased – he assembled a valuable collection of these, for his private filing system.

He observed that Mrs Bannister now ran the whole thing: Jack Lett was preoccupied with production questions, and Captain Bannister was now an infinitely subdued character who never made a single concrete suggestion, and drank his way steadily through each succeeding day. It was not a comfortable household, but at least it had a predetermined protocol which cut mistakes to the minimum.

He observed that Jack Lett, handling the toys and games angle, was making a fortune, both for himself and for the Guild. The Tapalong Club system was an intricate structure, extremely well organized on a worldwide basis: the subscriptions alone, remitted direct to the Guild, were a huge item in the balance sheet, and the royalties on the sale of uniforms added up to a fantastic total.

He observed that this balance sheet was a somewhat haphazard affair; though the donations from the Guild to outside charities were substantial, there was an enormous margin left over, undistributed and never allocated to any specific object.

He observed that ‘expenses’ covered a lot of ground, much of it scarcely charitable.

He observed that Esther was not happy; that Mrs Bannister was never quite free of anxiety; that Captain Bannister did whatever he was told, with a beaten dog’s obedience; and that Jack Lett was careful not to identify himself with the various meetings and the ‘presentation’ of Esther, only with the sale of her various brand products. He did, however, put in a certain amount of overtime as Mrs Bannister’s lover.

Harry Grant could not use any of this, but he tried his utmost with the printable material. The tour progressed: New York built up to a legendary triumph; he filed a lot of stories, and Ryan telexed that he was pleased with them.