It was on conversations such as this that Skullion depended for any interest in his life. And on his daily consumption of Hardy's Special Ale and the memories the ale seemed to encourage. Every day the Chef would come over for a chat or, if there was anything very special for High Table dinner, he would bring some over for the Master's approval. 'Knowed you liked this, Mr Skullion, and I've cut it up small so it's easier to chew,' he would say and Skullion would answer, 'Very nice, Cheffy, very tasty. Always were the best Chef I can remember in this or any college and old Whatsisname in Trinity used to take some beating.' Almost every day the Chef brought over some quails' eggs even when they weren't on the Fellows' menu because Skullion was partial to them like and they went down easy and hardly needed any chewing to speak of.

Most of these little meetings of like minds took place out of sight of the rest of the College and were held round the corner on the far side of the Master's Maze but from his study Purefoy Osbert could only see the foot of the wheelchair and was intrigued by the routine of the Chef in his white hat and coat crossing the lawn bearing dishes on a great silver tray with napkins, immaculately ironed, laid out over the serving dishes, just as he was intrigued by the sight of the Master leaning with infinite patience late into the night against the great beech tree watching the back gate tipped with formidable revolving spikes over which no one ever climbed. It was as though he were witnessing some ancient Porterhouse ritual that had been handed down through the centuries. And always Purefoy wondered what was being said behind the yew hedge of the maze and what he might learn if he listened to it. In the end his curiosity got the better of him and one lunchtime, when Skullion was safely in the Master's Lodge, Purefoy Obsert sauntered casually through the rose garden before doubling back out of sight of the Lodge and entering the maze. It was not a large maze but it was an unusually difficult one, and the yew was old and dense. It took Purefoy twenty minutes to reach the corner beyond which Skullion sat in the afternoon and the Chef came with his offering. Purefoy Osbert sat down and waited.

He had to wait for an hour before the Master wheeled himself out and stationed himself only a yard or two away with his bottles of ale and his memories of Porterhouse past. But this afternoon he was in a bad temper. He had had a run-in with the Matron who had insisted on his having a bath. 'It's no use your grumbling at me, Master,' she had said, 'we can't have you smelling. You're going to have a bath and a change of clothes. That old suit of yours has got to go to the dry cleaners and if I had my way it would go to the incinerator. Now then, off with your jacket and…' Being bathed by the Matron was Skullion's worst moment in the week. It was the ultimate indignity. Deprived of his clothes and the bowler hat, that badge of his office as Head Porter which he had refused to part with even as Master, he not only was naked; he felt naked, naked and vulnerable and in the presence of a woman with none of the sensibilities and respect for human decencies he demanded. Not that he minded having his back scrubbed-he quite liked that-but there were other areas, his privates as he called them, in which the Matron took what he considered a thoroughly indecent interest and insisted on washing very meticulously because, as she put it so coarsely, if she didn't he'd smell even more like an old dog fox than he did already. Skullion didn't mind being compared to an old dog by Arthur but for a bitch like the Matron to liken him to an old dog fox was going a damned sight too far. And he'd told her so in no uncertain terms. 'You aren't even a married woman and no bloody wonder and, if you want to find out what you've been missing, you go and find some other man to fiddle with because I bloody don't like it. Or you. I can look after them myself.' Which had done nothing to improve the Matron's temper or her treatment of him.

'You've got a dirty mind, you have, and it's no use your looking at me like that. Call yourself the Master of Porterhouse and you can't even talk like a gentleman,' she had snapped back at him and had then really put the boot in. 'I heard the Dea-well, never you mind who, say the other day, and I did too, that it was about time they sent you to the Park. Oh yes, he did. Where do you think he's been these past weeks? Hasn't been visiting any sick relatives in Wales. Been going round the important Old Porterthusians looking for a Master. That's what he's been doing. And if you don't believe me, you ask Walter in the Porter's Lodge and he'll tell you. In fact I wonder you don't know it already because it's common knowledge in the College. You're for Porterhouse Park and I for one won't be sorry to see you go. I won't have to soil my hands bathing you there.' She had said it with such venom and conviction that Skullion had sensed she was telling the truth. Besides he had suspected something of the sort himself from the way Cheffy and Arthur and Walter had all treated him with more sympathy than they had ever shown before. He had never wanted sympathy and until very recently they had not wasted it on him. Instead they had shown him the respect they had shown when he was Head Porter and the most important servant in the College. Not that he was going to ask them. He didn't want them to have to lie to him. That wasn't proper and he had always done things the proper way.

So, now, on this warm afternoon, he sat drinking an unusually large number of bottles of Hardy's Special Ale which Arthur had opened for him, all the time nursing a growing sense of grievance against the world. He even snapped at Cheffy for cutting off the crusts of his cucumber sandwiches for tea which he had never done before. And when Arthur had come out to tell him his dinner was ready, Skullion said he didn't want any.

'Got to keep your strength up, Mr Skullion,' Arthur told him.

'What for?' Skullion demanded. 'What bloody for?'

Arthur was nonplussed. 'Well, I don't really know, Mr Skullion. But you've always been so fond of your grub.'

'Well, I ain't now. You go and get me another half of Hardy's. I've got things to think about.'

For a moment Arthur hesitated. He knew he ought to say he'd had enough already and another six bottles, which was what Skullion meant by a half, and he wouldn't just be half-seas over, he'd be all the bloody way. But he knew better. It wasn't just that Skullion-that Mr Skullion-was the Master. If that had been all, like with the previous Masters, he'd have told him to his face he'd had enough and it wasn't right the Master getting pissed. No, he'd have said that and been cursed for his damned insolence, and maybe he'd have got the Master in to his dinner and maybe he wouldn't, but in the morning the incident would have been forgotten and certainly ignored. But with Mr Skullion it was different. Mr Skullion wasn't just any old Master of Porterhouse, he was Mr Skullion the Head Porter which meant far more to Arthur and Cheffy and the rest of the College servants who remembered him in his prime. It went still deeper, far, far deeper than that. It was that Mr Skullion was Mr Skullion who'd always done things proper and never lied except when he had to save someone else's bacon or the College reputation. He'd have died for Porterhouse, Mr Skullion would have, and no mistake. As Head Porter he'd licked the young gentlemen into shape. 'You'd better get your hair cut, Mr Walker,' Arthur had once heard him tell an undergraduate. 'We can't have them saying Porterhouse is full of nancy boys like King's, can we, sir? And if you haven't got it on you, sir, here's half a crown and I'll put it down against the slate.' And he had done the same with every College servant who'd needed pulling up and told to do it proper, whatever it was. 'Proper is as proper does,' had been Mr Skullion's motto and, if there'd been one word he'd used more than any other-and there was-it was proper. Mr Skullion was proper. There was no other way of putting it and, if he wanted to get properly pissed, Arthur wasn't going to stop him. Mr Skullion was his own man and there weren't many in Cambridge or anywhere else for that matter you could say that about. And so, after the briefest of hesitations, Arthur went back, into the Master's Lodge and came back with the bottles and put them down with the tops off on the tray under the rug where Skullion could reach them and all he said was, 'Are you all right, Mr Skullion?' And Skullion had replied with a strange look, 'All right, Arthur? All right? Oh I'm all right. It's the others is all wrong.' And as Arthur had walked away back to the Lodge he'd heard Skullion call out, 'And thank you, Arthur, thank you,' which was only proper.