After a moment the Principal moved over to the local worthies and addressed some remark to the fashionable clergyman that was received with general laughter, except by the knighted physician, who stared coldly from face to face. Almost at the same time a signal from Mrs Welch drew Welch away and left Dixon with Gore-Urquhart, who now said: 'How long have you been in this game, then, Dixon?'

'Getting on for nine months now. They took me on last autumn.'

'I've a notion you're not too happy in it; am I right?'

'Yes, I think you are right, on the whole.'

'Where's the trouble? In you or in it?'

'Oh, both, I should say. They waste my time and I waste theirs.'

'Mm, I see. It's a waste of time teaching history, is it?'

Dixon resolved not to mind what he said to this man. 'No. Well taught and sensibly taught, history could do people a hell of a lot of good. But in practice it doesn't work out like that. Things get in the way. I don't quite see who's to blame for it. Bad teaching's the main thing. Not bad students, I mean.'

Gore-Urquhart nodded, then shot a quick glance at him. 'This lecture of yours tonight, now. Whose idea was it?'

'Professor Welch's. I could hardly refuse, of course. If it goes well it'll improve my standing here.'

'You're ambitious?'

'No. I've done badly here since I got the job. This lecture might help to save me getting the sack.'

'Here, laddie,' Gore-Urquhart said, and snatched two glasses of sherry from Maconochie's tray as he went towards the group that now included the Principal. Dixon thought perhaps he oughtn't to drink any more - he was already beginning to feel a little splendid - but took the glass that was held out to him and drank from it. 'Why have you come here tonight?' he asked.

'I've evaded your Principal so many times recently that I felt I had to come to this.'

'I can't see why you bother, you know. You're not dependent on the Principal. You're only letting yourself in for a lot of boredom.'

When Gore-Urquhart looked at him again, Dixon had a moment's trouble disposing of a slight spin of the head, caused by the other's out-of-focus face. 'I let myself in for several hours' boredom every day, Dixon. A couple more won't break my back.'

'Why do you stand it?'

'I want to influence people so they'll do what I think it's important they should do. I can't get 'em to do that unless I let 'em bore me first, you understand. Then just as they're delighting in having got me punch-drunk with talk I come back at 'em and make 'em do what I've got lined up for 'em.'

'I wish I could do that,' Dixon said enviously. 'When I'm punch-drunk with talk, which is what I am most of the time, that's when they come at me and make me do what they want me to do.' Apprehension and drink combined to break through another bulkhead in his mind and he went on eagerly: 'I'm the boredom-detector. I'm a finely-tuned instrument. If only I could get hold of a millionaire I'd be worth a bag of money to him. He could send me on ahead into dinners and cocktail-parties and night-clubs, just for five minutes, and then by looking at me he'd be able to read off the boredom-coefficient of any gathering. Like a canary down a mine; same idea. Then he'd know whether it was worth going in himself or not. He could send me in among the Rotarians and the stage crowd and the golfers and the arty types talking about statements of profiles rather than volumes and the musical…' He stopped, aware that Gore-Urquhart's large smooth face had tilted over to one side and was being held towards his own. 'Sorry,' he muttered, 'I forgot…'

Gore-Urquhart looked him up and down and then covered one eye with a hand, afterwards drawing a finger down the side of his face and smiling slightly. Though it wasn't a smile of ordinary amusement, it wasn't unfriendly either. 'I recognize a fellow sufferer,' he said. Then his manner changed: 'What school did you go to, Dixon, if I may ask you?'

'Local grammar school.'

Gore-Urquhart nodded. The fashionable clergyman and one of the aldermen now came over, filled glasses in their hands, and drew him off to join their group round the Principal. Dixon couldn't help admiring the way in which, without saying or doing anything specific, they established so effortlessly that he himself wasn't expected to accompany them. Then, as he watched incuriously, he saw Gore-Urquhart fall slightly behind his two companions and look across to where the Goldsmiths were standing. Cecil and Beesley were deep in talk and didn't notice Carol catching Gore-Urquhart's eye. An almost imperceptible and quite indecipherable glance passed between them. This puzzled Dixon, of course, and in some way troubled him, but, deciding to ponder about it later, if ever, he drained his glass and went up to Christine and Bertrand. 'Hallo, you two,' he cried gaily. 'Where have you been hiding?'

Christine flashed a look at Bertrand that made him not say whatever he'd been going to say, and said herself: 'I'd no idea this was going to be such a grand affair. Half the big-wigs in the city must be here.'

'I'd like us to go over to your uncle now, Christine,' Bertrand said. 'There are one or two things I want to discuss with him, if you remember.'

'In a minute, Bertrand; there's plenty of time,' Christine said 'dignantly'.

'No no, there isn't plenty of time; the thing's due to start in about ten minutes, and that isn't plenty of time for what I want to talk about.'

Dixon had noticed that Bertrand always said 'No no' instead of 'No', combining at small outlay a simultaneous lowering and raising of the eyebrows in verbal form. He wished he wouldn't do that. Past Bertrand's head, he could see Carol beginning to edge away from Cecil and Margaret - he noticed her for the first time - in his own direction. Quoting from a film he'd once seen, he said to Christine: 'Better do as he says, lady, otherwise he's liable to kick your teeth in.'

'Run away and play, Dixon.'

'Bertrand, how can you be so rude?'

'Me be so rude? I like that. Me be so rude. What about him? Who the hell does he think he is? Telling you to…'

Christine had gone red. 'Have you forgotten what I told you before we came?'

'Look, Christine, I didn't come here to talk to this… this fellow, nor about him, I may say. I came here simply and solely to get hold of your uncle, and it's now…'

'Why, hallo, Bertie dear,' Carol said behind him. 'I want you. Come over here, will you?'

Bertrand had performed a start of surprise and half-turn in one movement. 'Hallo, Carol, but I was just…'

'I shan't keep you a minute,' Carol said, and gripped his arm. 'I'll return him in good condition,' she added over her shoulder to Christine.

'Well… hallo, Christine,' Dixon said.

'Oh, hallo.'

'This really is the last time, isn't it?'

'Yes, that's right.'

He felt petulant and self-pitying. 'You don't seem to mind as much as I do.'

She looked at him for a moment, then abruptly turned her head aside, as if he were showing her a photograph in a book of forensic medicine. 'I've done all my minding,' she said. 'I'm not going to do any more now. Neither will you if you've got any sense.'

'I can't help minding,' he said. 'Minding isn't a thing you can do anything about. I can't help going on with it.'

'What's the matter with your eye?'

'Bertrand and I had a fight this afternoon.'

'A fight? He didn't say anything to me about it. What were you fighting about? A fight?'

'He told me to keep off the grass where you were concerned, and I said I wouldn't, so we started fighting.'

'But we agreed… You haven't changed your mind about…?'

'No. I just wasn't going to let him tell me what to do, that's all.'

'But fancy having a fight.' She seemed to be repressing a laugh. 'You lost, by the look of you.'