'Now then, you girls,' said Ben while Ned and I waited on the pavement. 'Hop it.'

'Stay where you are, I should,' Barley advised them.

'It's not your cab, dears. It's this bloke's' – indicating Ned – 'now piss off, like good girls.'

Barley swung his fist at Ben's head, which was adorned with a black Homburg hat. Ben blocked the blow like a man waving away a cobweb, and in the same movement drew Barley carefully out of the cab and handed him over to Ned, who took him equally carefuliy in an armlock.

Still in his Homburg, Ben disappeared into the back of the cab and came out with a girl in each hand.

'Why don't we all get a bit of fresh air?' Ned suggested while Ben gave the girls a tenner each to get lost.

'Good idea,' said Barley.

So we crossed the river in slow procession, with Brock's watchers bringing up the rear and Ben Lugg's cab crawling along behind us. A dirty brown dawn was rising over dockland.

'Sorry about that,' said Barley after a while. 'No harm done, is there, Nedsky?'

'None that I know of,' said Ned.

'Be alert,' Barley advised. 'Your Country Needs Lerts. Right, Nedsky?Just felt like making a spot of music,' he explained to me. 'You a musical man, Harry? Chum of mine used to play to his girl over the phone. Only piano, mind, not sax, but he said it did the trick. You could try it out on your missus.'

'We're leaving for America tomorrow,' said Ned.

Barley took thepews conversationally. 'Nice for you. Nice time of year. Country looking at its best, I'd say.'

'It's nice for you too, actually,' said Ned. 'We thought we'd take you along.'

'Casual, is it?' Barley asked. 'Or better pack a dinner jacket to be on the safe side?'