Chiddingfold’s gaze seemed to be becoming very fixed on the penholder again. Nunn had a sense that the audience was drawing to a close.

‘Jolly good,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Director, I must slip away and get back to work. Lot on my plate to-day.’

Chiddingfold nodded faintly and garnished the nod with the suggestion of a smile.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Nunn returned to his office and looked out his old football boots.

‘Oh, Miss Fram,’ he said to his secretary in the outer office. ‘Be an angel and take these to the repairers before the shop shuts. I’m afraid I’ve got to dodge along now to some sheep-dog trials.’

‘Very good, Mr. Nunn,’ said Miss Fram.

As Nunn hurried out, winking at her sportily and crying ‘Not a word to Bessy, mind,’ Miss Fram – angel, secretary, spinster, trump, treasure, and splendid little woman – thought an evil thought.

I think I’ll take advantage of Mr. Nunn’s absence, she thought. I’ll just take his football boots to the repairer and adjudicate the window-cleaning tenders and initial the Tea Room accounts and work out which of the Heads of Departments ought to get rises next year and choose three guest lecturers for the extra-mural course and set up a committee to organise the Queen’s visit, and then I’ll go home early and take an aspirin, and see if I can shake this influenza off at last.

6

Rowe sat before his typewriter working on his novel. The particular problem he was grappling with was how to deflower the virginity of that first white page before him with such tact and passion that he would not spoil the delicate relationship between them for ever. He could almost see how to do it. There was a complete strategic plan inside his head. But the inside of his head also seemed to be full of water, and it was difficult to struggle near enough to see exactly how the plan started.

Suddenly he rushed at the page without inhibition.

‘H,’ he wrote.

He looked at it. He was overcome with despair. He could scarcely have chosen a colder or less tactful letter to begin on. He ripped the paper out of the typewriter, wound in a fresh sheet, and pondered once more.

‘H,’ he wrote suddenly.

What an appalling letter it was! It was a letter from which no sentence had ever set out on a successful journey in the whole history of literature. He changed the paper again.

‘H,’ he wrote.

Was he mad? He crossed the soulless letter out and started yet again. ‘H,’ he typed. He crossed it out. ‘H,’ he typed. He crossed it out.

He sat back and screwed his finger about in his ear. Suddenly he became conscious that Goldwasser was watching him again out of the window of his laboratory. He took his finger out of his ear hastily and looked round. Goldwasser took his finger out of his ear, waved his hand, and darted nervously out of sight. Rowe started work again with a rush.