'None of them would,' Hartang insisted. 'None.'

'None,' said the Bursar, sensing agreement was obligatory.

For a time he was left to eat in silence while the great man made some calls to Hong Kong, Buenos Aires and New York and sucked what looked like an antacid tablet. It was only when the Bursar had finished an unpleasantly sticky jam tart, which played havoc with his dentures, and was drinking his coffee that Hartang announced his intentions. 'I got to see you again next week to discuss the funding requirements. Karl will coordinate with you and the accountants. I do not involve myself in details. Only in end outcomes. Like it has been a great pleasure meeting with you. We talk about funding requirements next week.'

And before the Bursar could say anything by way of thanks, he had disappeared through a small door in the wall disguised as a mirror. Karl Kudzuvine was waiting with the elevator. 'Same time same place and don't forget your ID,' he said. 'And the College account print-outs.'

'Print-outs?'

'Sure. We got to see what we're getting. Okay?'

'Well, actually we…' the Bursar began, but he was already being helped into a taxi which he directed to Liverpool Street Station. The whole experience had been most peculiar and a little disturbing. All the same the Bursar could congratulate himself. He might not-he certainly didn't-know what on earth was going on, but at least he seemed to have got some extremely rich and eccentric man, whose national, racial or linguistic origins he hadn't begun to fathom, interested in Porterhouse, and the repeated use of 'funding requirements' augured well.

During the following week he made a number of enquiries about Transworld Television Productions and Mr Edgar Hartang and, while some of the answers were reassuring, others were less so. TTP had been a small television and publishing company which had started off making educational and religious cartoon movies mainly for the US market, but had suddenly broadened its activities with the advent of satellite TV and what must have been an enormous injection of capital though the source of the funding was unknown. The company was a private one and owned by some sort of trust, which operated through Lichtenstein and possibly the Cayman Islands and Liberia. In short no one-certainly no one the Bursar could ask-no one knew who Edgar Hartang was, where he came from, or even where his home was. In London it was thought he had an apartment in the Transworld Centre, but since he invariably travelled incognito and by private jet what he did outside Britain was a mystery. What Transworld Television Productions did was also a bit of a mystery. They still made religious movies, though for so many different religions and denominations that no one had any idea what they themselves really stood for. To make things even more obscure they marketed whatever they did produce through so many subsidiaries in so many countries that it was impossible to know.

'But what about the whales and the baby octopuses?' the Bursar asked one man he knew who had connections with Nature Programmes at the BBC.

'Whales and what?'

'Baby octopuses,' said the Bursar, who had never got over Karl Kudzuvine's explanation of the extraordinary security measures at Transworld Centre. 'They made a series that had some pretty dramatic effect on the Spanish fishing industry. They received death threats and things.'

'Christ. I never heard about it, but if you say so. Try World Wildlife They'd know. I don't.'

But the Bursar hadn't bothered. From his point of view the only thing to matter was that Transworld Television Productions obviously had funds to spare. A company that could make religious movies for the Vatican, for several extreme Protestant Churches in the Bible Belt in America, for Hindus, for Buddhists and various sects all over the world as well as documentaries on rainforests, whales and baby octopuses, had to be incredibly rich. The Bursar began to think he had found a private gold-mine. All the same he remained puzzled and his bewilderment increased when he went down to London the following Wednesday.

This time he did not meet Mr Hartang. 'He's busy with Rio right now and then Bangkok want him so he's non-available,' Kudzuvine told him when he'd been through the metal-detector and the Porterhouse accounts ledgers had been screened in the X-ray machine. 'You got me and Skundler. Skundler does the assessmentation.'

Assessmentation?' said the Bursar.

'Like money. Okay?'

They went up in the elevator to Floor 9 and then down to 6. 'Got to be careful. Drill,' said Kudzuvine by way of explanation.

'Are you still having trouble about the baby octopuses?' asked the Bursar. For a moment Kudzuvine looked a little uncertain.

'Baby octopuses? Oh, sure, those baby octopuses. Are we ever. Those fucking wop fishermen in Italy. They've given us more trouble than you can imagine. Man, death threats.'

'Italians? Italian fishermen too?' asked the Bursar.

'Who else?' said Kudzuvine, but the Bursar hadn't time to answer. They had reached Floor 6. Kudzuvine carried the ledgers into Skundler's office and introduced the Bursar as Professor Bursar.

'Ross Skundler,' said the man, who looked exactly like Edgar Hartang the week before, but without the hairpiece. The desk was glass-topped too but far smaller than Hartang's, and while the chairs were the same green colour the leather was clearly artificial. There was no sofa. But if the Bursar was taking in the details of Ross Skundler's office with its computers and telephones, the Assessmentation Officer was finding it difficult to take in the Porterhouse ledgers. They were extremely large and quarterbound in dark red leather. 'Jesus,' he muttered and looked from them to Kudzuvine. 'What's with those? Where'd you find them? Ararat?'

'Arafat?' said Kudzuvine. 'What's the PLO got to do with it? Says on them Porterhouse. You only read figures or something?'

'Ark,' said Skundler, who evidently didn't like Kudzuvine's manner any more than he liked the look of the ledgers. 'The Ark oh Mount fucking Ararat. Animals two by two, okay? You can't count or something? Makes like four.'

The Bursar was about to intervene with some light remark about baby octopuses and Noah, but remembered in time that octopuses-or was it octopi?-could swim. He was feeling decidedly uneasy in the company of these two men who clearly hated one another.

'I can count,' said Kudzuvine, 'but Professor Bursar don't have no print-out. Isn't that right, Prof?'

The Bursar nodded. 'I'm afraid we aren't into computers,' he said, trying to match their way of talking.

'You can say that again,' said Skundler, still looking very warily at the huge ledgers. 'These have got to be fiscal archaeology. Like dealing with the Fuggers.'

But even the Bursar was beginning to get annoyed. 'I beg your pardon,' he said coldly.

Mr Skundler looked up at him very suspiciously. 'What for?' he asked.

This time it was Kudzuvine's turn to intervene and pacify things. 'Just because the Prof isn't computer-literate don't mean you got to call him that. Old guy can't help it.'

'Call him what, for fucksake?'

'You know. You've just used it again.'

'Used it again? You mean…' The light dawned. 'I didn't call him a fucker. What's he done I got to call him that? _Fugger,_ dummy, F-U-G-G-E-R-S. Kraut bankers way back in the Dark Ages. Like…like the Crusades or something. Used quills. Jesus, what a way to run a business. Got to catch a fucking goose every time you make an entry. You use a-' But something about the look on the Bursar's face stopped the question. 'Okay, let's go,' he said instead and opened the first ledger. 'Just hope you're into double entry.'

The Bursar hit back. As a matter of fact we are,' he said. And what's more we don't use quills.'