‘Good morning, Director,’ he said.

‘Good morning,’ said Chiddingfold, lifting his head from his thumbs and stretching his lips in a minimal smile.

‘New South Wales are 147 for 5. Heard it on the short wave half an hour ago. One of the Queensland slips has split his thumb rather nastily. Blood all over his flannels before they could get him off, I gather.’

Chiddingfold’s head sank back on to its mountings. His smile returned politely by way of acknowledgment, and went again.

‘I don’t know whether you’ve ever looked in the Heads of Departments bog, Director,’ Nunn went on, seating himself against the edge of an occasional table. ‘But some of these gentlemen are peeing four or five times in one morning. I may be a stuffy old soldier, but that seems a bit excessive to me, unless they’ve got notes from their doctors. Goldwasser’s the worst offender.

‘And another thing. The place is being used by ORs. They’ve got a perfectly good lavatory of their own, and they obviously wouldn’t go in the Heads of Departments one if they weren’t being encouraged. I’m pretty certain Goldwasser’s inviting them in, as a matter of fact. Or at any rate he’s not chucking them out, which comes to much the same thing. It’s not the first time I’ve had occasion to take Goldwasser’s name, either. We’re going to have to keep our eye on that lad.’

Nunn looked at Chiddingfold to see how he was reacting to this information. There was no sign of any reaction at all, so Nunn went on:

‘Anyway, he can consider his name taken again.’

Nunn inspected the toes of his shoes. He was trying to think of a way of bringing up the question of the Queen’s visit that wouldn’t make him look ludicrously ill-informed if Chiddingfold had heard already.

‘Now this business of the Queen’s visit,’ he said at last.

The great head lifted off its hooks at once and looked straight at him, the pale blue eyes startled.

‘Oh,’ said Nunn, ‘you hadn’t heard, then, Director?’

The head moved minimally from side to side.

‘Well, apparently the Queen’s going to pay an official visit to the Institute and open the new wing.’

The head relapsed slowly on to the thumbs. The eyes, however, looked not at the penholder but at the window. Chiddingfold was clearly excited by the news.

‘So I’m told by my spies, anyway,’ said Nunn. ‘Nothing official yet, of course. One doesn’t want to pontificate, but I myself – and this is merely my own personal opinion – feel that it in some sense marks the coming of age of automation research.’

Chiddingfold looked up at Nunn for a moment.

‘We are being received into the body academic,’ said Nunn. ‘To tell you the truth, Director, I thought you might have been pulling strings.’

Chiddingfold allowed a disclaiming smile to shine palely for a moment.

‘No?’ said Nunn. ‘Well, it must have been Rothermere Vulgurian and his friends. What I believe is called the Establishment at work again. I suppose it has its uses in a case like this. Beats me how they do it. I suppose if you’re as big as Vulgurian it just needs a word here and a word there. Money still talks, there’s no getting away from it.’