“I begin to see why you chose advertising as a source of supply.” The look of doubt left Miss Meteyard’s angular face, and was replaced by a faintly derisive expression. “Well, I suppose I’d better get back to Tomboy Toffee. Thanks for your dope about googlies.”

Bredon shook his head mournfully as the door closed after her. “Careless,” he muttered. “Nearly gave the game away. Oh, well, I suppose I’d better do some work and look as genuine as possible.”

He pulled towards him a guard-book pasted up with pulls of Nutrax advertising and studied its pages thoughtfully. He was not left long in peace, however, for after a couple of minutes Ingleby slouched in, a foul pipe at full blast and his hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets.

“I say, is Brewer here?”

“Don’t know him. But,” added Bredon, waving his hand negligently, “you have my permission to search. The priest’s hole and the concealed staircase are at your service.”

Ingleby rooted in the bookcase in vain.

“Somebody’s bagged him. Anyway, how do you spell Chrononhotonthologos?”

“Oh! I can do that. And Aldiborontophoscophornio, too. Crossword? Torquemada?”

“No, headline for Good Judges. Isn’t it hot? And now I suppose we’re going to have a week’s dust and hammering.”

“Why?”

“The fiat has gone forth. The iron staircase is condemned.”

“Who by?”

‘The Board.”

“Oh, rot! they mustn’t do that.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Admission of liability, isn’t it?”

“Time, too.”

“Well, I suppose it is.”

“You look quite startled. I was beginning to think you had some sort of personal feeling in the matter.”

“Good lord, no, why should I? Just a matter of principle. Except that the staircase does seem to have had its uses in eliminating the unfit. I gather that the late Victor Dean was not universally beloved.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I never saw much harm in him, except that he wasn’t exactly pukka and hadn’t quite imbibed the Pym spirit, as you may say. Of course the Meteyard woman loathed him.”

“Why?”

“Oh! she’s a decent sort of female, but makes no allowances. My motto is, live and let live, but protect your own interests. How are you getting on with Nutrax?”

“Haven’t touched it yet. I’ve been trying to get out a name for Twentyman’s shilling tea. As far as I can make Hankin out, it has no qualities except cheapness to recommend it, and is chiefly made of odds and ends of other teas. The name must suggest solid worth and respectability.”

“Why not call it ‘Domestic Blend’? Nothing could sound more reliable and obviously nothing could suggest so much dreary economy.”

“Good idea. I’ll put it up to him.” Bredon yawned. “I’ve had too much lunch. I don’t think anybody ought to have to work at half-past two in the afternoon. It’s unnatural.”

“Everything’s unnatural in this job. Oh, my God! Here’s somebody with something on a tray! Go away! go a-way!”

“I’m sorry,” said Miss Parton, brightly, entering with six saucers filled with a grey and steaming mess. “But Mr. Hankin says, will you please taste these samples of porridge and report upon them?”

“My dear girl, look at the time!”

“Yes, I know, it’s awful, isn’t it? They’re numbered A, B and C, and here’s the questionnaire paper, and if you’ll let me have the spoons back I’ll get them washed for Mr. Copley.”

“I shall be sick,” moaned Ingleby. “Who’s this? Peabody ’s?”

“Yes-they’re putting out a tinned porridge, ‘Piper Parritch.’ No boiling, no stirring-only heat the tin. Look for the Piper on the label.”

“Look here,” said Ingleby, “run away and try it on Mr. McAllister.”

“I did, but his report isn’t printable. There’s sugar and salt and a jug of milk.”

“What we suffer in the service of the public!” Ingleby attacked the mess with a disgusted sniff and a languid spoon. Bredon solemnly rolled the portions upon his tongue, and detained Miss Parton.

“Here, take this down while it’s fresh in my mind. Vintage A: Fine, full-bodied, sweet nutty flavour, fully matured; a grand masculine porridge. Vintage B: extra-sec, refined, delicate character, requiring only-”

Miss Parton emitted a delighted giggle, and Ingleby, who hated gigglers, fled.

“Tell me, timeless houri,” demanded Mr. Bredon, “what was wrong with my lamented predecessor? Why did Miss Meteyard hate him and why does Ingleby praise him with faint damns?”

This was no problem to Miss Parton.

“Why, because he didn’t play fair. He was always snooping round other people’s rooms, picking up their ideas and showing them up as his own. And if anybody gave him a headline and Mr. Armstrong or Mr. Hankin liked it, he never said whose it was.”

This explanation seemed to interest Bredon. He trotted down the passage and thrust his head round Garrett’s door. Garrett was stolidly making out his porridge report, and looked up with a grunt.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you at one of those moments of ecstasy,” bleated Bredon, “but I wanted to ask you something. I mean to say, it’s just a question of etiquette, don’t you know, and what’s done, so to speak. I mean, look here! You see, Hankie-pankie told me to get out a list of names for a shilling tea and I got out some awful rotten ones, and then Ingleby came in and I said, ‘What would you call this tea?’ just like that, and he said, ‘Call it Domestic Blend,’ and I said, ‘What ho! that absolutely whangs the nail over the crumpet.’ Because it struck me, really, as being the caterpillar’s boots.”

“Well, what about it?”

“Well, just now I was chatting to Miss Parton about that fellow Dean, the one who fell downstairs you know, and why one or two people here didn’t seem to be fearfully keen on him, and she said, it was because he got ideas out of other people and showed them up with his own stuff. And what I wanted to know was, isn’t it done to ask people? Ingleby didn’t say anything, but of course, if I’ve made a floater-”

“Well, it’s like this,” said Garrett. “There’s a sort of unwritten law-at our end of the corridor, anyway. You take any help you can get and show it up with your initials on it, but if Armstrong or whoever it is simply goes all out on it and starts throwing bouquets about, you’re rather expected to murmur that it was the other bird’s suggestion really, and you thought rather well of it yourself.”

“Oh, I see. Oh, thanks frightfully. And if, on the other hand, he goes right up in the air and says it’s the damn-silliest thing he’s seen since 1919, you stand the racket, I suppose.”

“Naturally. If it’s as silly as that you ought to have known better than to put it up to him anyway.”

“Oh, yes.”

“The trouble with Dean was that he first of all snitched people’s ideas without telling them, and then didn’t give them the credit for it with Hankin. But, I say, I wouldn’t go asking Copley or Willis for too much assistance if I were you. They weren’t brought up to the idea of lending round their lecture notes. They’ve a sort of board-school idea that everybody ought to paddle his own canoe.”

Bredon thanked Garrett again.

“And if I were you,” continued Garrett, “I wouldn’t mention Dean to Willis at all. There’s some kind of feeling-I don’t know quite what. Anyway, I just thought I’d warn you.”

Bredon thanked him with almost passionate gratitude.

“It’s so easy to put your foot in it in a new place, isn’t it? I’m really most frightfully obliged to you.”

Clearly Mr. Bredon was a man of no sensibility, for half an hour later he was in Willis’s room, and had introduced the subject of the late Victor Dean. The result was an unequivocal request that Mr. Bredon would mind his own business. Mr. Willis did not wish to discuss Mr. Dean at all. In addition to this, Bredon became aware that Willis was suffering from an acute and painful embarrassment, almost as though the conversation had taken some indecent turn. He was puzzled, but persisted. Willis, after sitting for some moments in gloomy silence, fidgeting with a pencil, at last looked up.