For a quarter of a minute the two men looked at one another, Chiddingfold growing visibly older, Nunn visibly younger. As the situation soaked slowly into his consciousness, like rain into parched earth, Nunn felt his virtue return. Security was not threatened; his little slip had not come to light; if Goldwasser were to phone now he would be able to cut in and take the call himself; if, anyway, anything went wrong there would be no Queen for Goldwasser to perpetrate an outrage against; and Chiddingfold, the Director of Directors, the Captain of Nunn’s soul, was not only the constituted authority who made Nunn’s powers legitimate, but was also at last proved to be an unresisting handful of clay on whom those legitimate powers could henceforth be exercised without restraint.

Chiddingfold turned his hopeless gaze on to the dense ranks of silent guests who could be seen through the window of the booth, all tense before the terrible high dive into the ecstasy of shaking their sovereign’s hand.

‘What shall we, er, do?’ he asked hopelessly.

Nunn felt himself once again the calm commander of the situation.

‘We’ll have to go through with it,’ he said. ‘The wing’s got to be opened, after all. And we can’t just tell all these people to go home again.’

Chiddingfold inclined his head.

‘We shall have to start at once too,’ said Nunn. ‘Vulgurian and several of the other bigwigs have got important appointments to go on to afterwards.’

Chiddingfold inclined his head again.

‘And if we don’t want the whole thing to become a complete shambles, we shall have to go through with it exactly as we rehearsed it. We can’t jolly well start trying to rejig it at this stage.’

‘But how, er . . . ?’

‘We’ll have to rely on jolly old Nobbs again.’

Zinnia went out and fetched him from the line of Principal Research Assistants. The company was beginning to murmur uneasily. Heads were twitching round to find the cause of the delay. When Nobbs came into the booth he struck the door a jarring thud with his thigh that reverberated throughout the foyer, and brought every head round to look. Chiddingfold seemed to shrink with advancing age.

‘Jolly good, Nobbs,’ said Nunn. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that the Queen’s visit has had to be cancelled at the last moment, and we’re going to have to rely on you to see us through once again.’

‘What?’ cried Nobbs.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nunn. ‘But I know you’ll be the first to appreciate that it’s got to be done.’

‘Oh, bloody hell!’

‘Jolly good. I knew you wouldn’t let us down.’

‘Why keep picking on me?’

‘We’ll have to start immediately.’

‘But why me?’

‘All set, then? Off we go.’

Nobbs looked desperately from Nunn to Chiddingfold.