And in that day Nunn set his niblicks and his fencing-masks aside, and arose, and entered upon his inheritance. In other parts of the field that morning there was nervousness and a desperate fumbling of last-minute preparations. But Nunn was calm and serene – a man born to command and do battle standing at last upon the morning of his Agincourt. All the anxiety and the planning were behind him. The decisions were taken; it was for his subordinates to exercise their anxiety in carrying them out. Nunn spent the morning playing golf. When he arrived at the Institute that afternoon, after eighteen holes at par and a leisurely lunch, the awning was already erected outside the main entrance and the red carpet laid. He examined them in an alert, pleased frame of mind. When he passed the open windows of the new wing a smell of quick-drying enamel came to him from the four cardboard computers which had been erected that morning in a desperate attempt to fill the remaining acres of empty laboratory. Nunn smiled. In his outer office he found Miss Fram telephoning urgently for a plumber to come and remove a furious knocking that had suddenly started up in the water-pipes in the royal lavatory. She looked tired and slightly hysterical. Nunn gazed at her, filled with compassion for her in the labours which her allegiance to his command entailed. He blessed her.

‘Jolly good,’ he said.

In his own office he paused for some time before a cupboard in one corner, on which there stood a number of silver cups awarded to him for tobogganing, clay pigeon shooting, real tennis, hurley, and fly-fishing. He contemplated them steadily, and commended his soul to that Great Commander in whom he reposed his trust, and whose humble and unquestioning servant he was in all things.

‘O Chiddingfold,’ he prayed, ‘Ground of my being and Justification of my existence, Chiddingfold me through another day.’

He went and looked through the keyhole into Chiddingfold’s office to make sure that his prayer was being answered. There indeed sat Chiddingfold, his great head buttressed by his hands, his lips ready to bend in their obliging smile at the sight of anyone, his elbows firmly established upon the polished desk top, Director of Directors, the institution made flesh, all things to all men, everlasting and unchanging, except that to-day he was wearing his best suit. There could be no doubt that Chiddingfold was still the mysterious source of authority and power, and that he, Nunn, was still the legitimate channel through which that authority and that power flowed to make their mark upon the world. The day would go forward triumphantly and inexorably. The simple but drastic precautions he had decided upon to disable the sinister influence that threatened the proceedings were the right ones.

Nunn made an end to his religious speculations. He straightened up, knocked, and entered.