Kudzuvine tried to consider the alternatives and found it very difficult. The Praelector seemed to have left something out. 'You mean between cooking brandy and cognac? Man, I don't know what to say. I keep telling you I'm a non-alcoholic teetotaller. I don't even touch beer. I don't smoke grass, nothing. Not any more. You know, keep my body clear and clean. Even gave up Listerine somebody tells me it's got alcohol. And you want to go easy on the under-arm stuff too. Some of that's got aluminum in it. Gives you Alzheimer's.' He paused as a new and more terrible thought hit him. 'You guys haven't got Alzheimer's, have you? Dear shit…'

The Praelector drew up a chair. He had reached the end of what little patience he had managed to retain. 'If you are ready, Walter,' he said to the Head Porter, but the Chaplain had remembered something. 'You know, I do believe he may be right,' he said.

The Praelector looked up at him. So did Kudzuvine. About what?' asked the Praelector, who couldn't for the life of him believe that this filthy American gangster could be right about anything at all.

'About the television thing. Weren't they trying to bring some sort of lorry with wires in through the Main Gate, Walter?'

'What, this morning, sir? Come to think of it, they were. Had Transworld Television written on the side. I wouldn't let them. I wasn't having that. I told them the last time them bolts was undone was when Her Majesty-'

'Is this true, Walter?' the Praelector interrupted. 'You actually saw this…these words?'

'Oh yes, sir, and Henry did too, didn't you, Henry?'

The Junior Porter nodded. 'He kept asking for Professor Purser and you said we didn't have no Professor Purser and the Bursar came along. Been to Early Communion the Bursar had and you said that wasn't like him to come so early…'

On the floor Kudzuvine managed to find words. Brandy had been dripping from the end of the douche onto his face. 'Professor Bursar,' he screamed, 'Professor Bursar gave me permission to take…to video the College for Mr Hartang. You ask him he'll tell you. I had his authorization. Okay, so not on the lawns.'

'Not on the lawns? What not on the lawns?'

'Like walk on them. They're hundreds of years old you know that? Hundreds and hundreds of years old.'

'Really?' said the Praelector, who happened to know they had been relaid ten years before 'You know, I hadn't thought of it like that.' He was beginning to think that whatever had been going on the Bursar was going to have a quite staggering amount of explaining to do. In the meantime this man, whose name seemed as unlikely as his syntax, had to be handled with rather more care and sophistication than he had been shown to date It would do the Porterhouse reputation no good at all if it leaked out-the word was unfortunately most appropriate-that he had been threatened with forced brandy-drinking by means of a douche that had for ten years been used for colonic irrigation purposes by the Chaplain. That sort of thing would not look good in the _Cambridge Evening News._

The Praelector set out on a policy of appeasement. 'My dear chap,' he said, helping Kudzuvine to his feet. 'You were saying something about the lawn being hundreds of years old and…'

'Sure. Professor Bursar told me that. They're protected species like whales and stuff,' said Kudzuvine, still eyeing him very warily indeed. 'Didn't say nothing about roofs and chapels. They a protected species too?'

'More or less,' said the Praelector and changed his mind. This man Kudzuvine, if that was really his name, had very little grasp of English. 'In fact very much more. They are Listed Buildings under an Act of Parliament signed by Her Majesty the Queen and cannot be altered, touched, damaged or in any way interfered with without the duly obtained permission given in writing and after due consultation by Her Majesty's Commissioners for Ancient Monuments which permission will only be given should the Monument or Listed Building be in serious danger of collapsing. I can assure you that the Porterhouse Chapel and the Monuments it contains come into the latter category as a result of the actions of the men you introduced into the College and for whom you are responsible. I cannot begin to imagine the full consequences of your action except that they will be extremely drastic The issue may have to go to the Privy Council. I hope I have made myself clear.' By which the Praelector of course meant the opposite.

Kudzuvine was still gaping at him. 'The Privy Council?' he muttered. 'Did you say Privy Council?'

'Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second's Privy Council deals with matters-'

Kudzuvine held up a shaking hand. 'Don't tell me,' he said, 'and I had romantic dreams about that Princess of Wales and the Royal Family. And now you tell me Her Majesty…Shit! You British. I'm never going to understand anything round here.'

'Few people do,' said the Praelector. 'We are, I suppose, an acquired taste. Am I not right, Chaplain?'

Kudzuvine turned to look at the Chaplain, who was helping Walter and Henry to drain the cooking brandy back into the bottle. 'Did you say "an acquired taste"?' he said. 'I shouldn't have thought so. It's only cooking brandy and I very much doubt that anyone will notice the Blu-Tack. In fact it might actually add a certain bouquet to the brandy which it presently lacks.'

'I got to get out of here but now,' said Kudzuvine and stumbled towards the door only to be tripped up again by the Praelector using the umbrella. As he slumped forward and hit his head Kudzuvine had the briefest moment of lucid thought. He had to get out of this terrible, terrible place before…

By the time Walter and Henry carried him across the Fellows' Garden to the Master's Lodge he was mercifully quite unconscious.

'I am afraid the creature will have to be our honoured guest for a few days until he has quite recovered,' the Praelector said. 'I can think of no better place for an honoured guest than the Master's Lodge It is immensely secure and well-protected, and besides he will be company for the Master. I am sure Skullion will see he is looked after properly. I shall send for Dr MacKendly and perhaps it would be advisable for Matron to move into the room next to his with another porter on hand and possibly even one or two of the larger kitchen staff to see to his needs and to ensure he does not leave the College. In the meantime, I think a word with the Bursar is called for.'

10

While Kudzuvine was stripped of his polo-neck sweater, his trousers and underwear, his white socks and his moccasins and put to bed stark naked (his clothes were sent to the College laundry for unnecessary attention), the exhausted Praelector gave orders that only undergraduates and Fellows were to be allowed to enter or leave Porterhouse. Then he went to see if the Senior Tutor was in a fit state to discuss matters with the Bursar. He found him sipping a cup of beef tea and in a very nasty mood indeed. But at least he was sober.

'I must have been insane,' he muttered, staring blankly into the empty fireplace.

The Praelector patted his shoulder sympathetically. 'You certainly acted most peculiarly, old chap, though I would not have gone so far as to say you were actually insane Just not your usual self.'

The Senior Tutor started in his chair and looked at him with genuine hatred. 'Don't you start again,' he snarled. 'I had enough of that this morning. Whether I was beside myself or in two minds and whether I had a right mind or a left one. And then you accused me of masturbating. I wonder you didn't come out with it and say I was suffering from Wankers' Doom and ask if I had hair on the palms of my hands. And then to top it all you had to send that bloody Matron round when you knew I was lying naked on the floor and could hardly move. Have you ever been…I won't say nursed by that foul woman because her methods of nursing predate Florence Nightingale. Do you know what she did to me?'