'Give me Aeroflot every time,' Barley raged at the assembled faces. 'I'm going to write to the airline. I'm going to - , 'You're going to do nothing of the kind,' Ned kindly interrupted him.

'You're going to let us make an enormous fuss of you. You can have your tantrum later.'

As he said this, he went on shaking Barley's hand until Barley eventually smiled.

'Where's Walt?' he asked, peering round.

'I'm afraid he's off on a job,' said Ned but Barley had already lost interest. His hand trembled violently as he drank and he wept a bit, which Ned assured me was par for the course forjoes coming back from the field.