Martins held his handkerchief to his mouth and said obscurely, ‘Yes. Yes?’

‘May I say at once, Mr Dexter, how excited I am to meet you?’

‘Good of you.’

‘Ever since I was a boy, I’ve thought you the greatest novelist of our century.’

Martins winced. It was painful opening his mouth to protest. He took an angry look instead at Mr Crabbin, but it was impossible to suspect that young man of a practical joke.

‘You have a big Austrian public, Mr Dexter, both for your originals and your translations. Especially for The Curved Prow, that’s my own favourite.’

Martins was thinking hard. ‘Did you say – room for a week?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very kind of you.’

‘Mr Schmidt here will give you tickets every day, to cover all meals. But I expect you’ll need a little pocket money. We’ll fix that. Tomorrow we thought you’d like a quiet day – to look about.’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course any of us are at your service if you need a guide. Then the day after tomorrow in the evening there’s a little quiet discussion at the Institute – on the contemporary novel. We thought perhaps you’d say a few words just to set the ball rolling, and then answer questions.’

Martins at that moment was prepared to agree to anything to get rid of Mr Crabbin and also to secure a week’s free board and lodging; and Rollo, of course, as I was to discover later, had always been prepared to accept any suggestion – for a drink, for a girl, for a joke, for a new excitement. He said now, ‘Of course, of course,’ into his handkerchief.

‘Excuse me, Mr Dexter, have you got toothache? I know a very good dentist.’

‘No. Somebody hit me, that’s all.’

‘Good God! Were they trying to rob you?’

‘No, it was a soldier. I was trying to punch his bloody colonel in the eye.’ He removed the handkerchief and gave Crabbin a view of his cut mouth. He told me that Crabbin was at a complete loss for words. Martins couldn’t understand why because he had never read the work of his great contemporary, Benjamin Dexter: he hadn’t even heard of him. I am a great admirer of Dexter, so that I could understand Crabbin’s bewilderment. Dexter has been ranked as a stylist with Henry James, but he has a wider feminine streak than his master – indeed his enemies have sometimes described his subtle, complex, wavering style as old-maidish. For a man still just on the right side of fifty his passionate interest in embroidery and his habit of calming a not very tumultuous mind with tatting – a trait beloved by his disciples – certainly to others seems a little affected.

‘Have you ever read a book called The Lone Rider of Santa Fé?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’