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By Root 2503 0

to make himself unnecessarily disagreeable in any quarter that might reasonably be thought to arouse special apprehension. Besides this, Templer could not possibly be looked upon as a credit to the house. He was not much of a hand at the sort of games that are played at school (though his build made him good at tennis and golf), so that he was in a weak position, being fairly lazy at work, to withstand prolonged aggression from a housemaster. Consequently Templer was involved in a continuous series of minor rows. The question of the train was evidently to become the current point for Le Bas’s attack.

“Well, that all seems to have blown over for the moment,” Stringham said. “You ought to keep your uncles in better order, Jenkins.”

I explained that Uncle Giles was known for being impossible to keep in order, and that he always left trouble in his wake. Templer said: “I suppose Le Bas will go on pestering about that train. You know, I used to be a great pet of his. Now his only object seems to be to get me sacked.”

“He ought to be able to bring that off sooner or later with your help,” said Stringham. “After all he is not an absolute fool: though pretty near it.”

“I believe he was quite an oar in his youth,” said Templer. “At least he won the Diamond Sculls. Still, past successes at Henley don’t make him any more tolerable to deal with as a housemaster.”

“He started life as a poet,” Stringham said. “Did you know that? Years ago, after coming back from a holiday in Greece, he wrote some things that he thought were frightfully good. He showed them to someone or other who pointed out that, as a matter of fact, they were frightfully bad. Le Bas never got over it.”

“I can’t imagine anything more appalling than a poem by Le Bas,” said Templer, “though I’m surprised he doesn’t make his pupils learn them.”

“Who did he show them to?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Stringham. “Henry James, or Robert Louis Stevenson, or someone like that.”

“Who on earth told you?”

“An elderly character who came to lunch. I believe he is an ambassador somewhere; or was. He used to run round with the same gang as Le Bas. He said Le Bas used to be tremendously promising as a young man. He was good at everything.”

“I can’t imagine he was ever much good with the girls,” said Templer.

“Maybe not,” said Stringham. “Not everyone has your singleness of aim. As a matter of fact do you think Le Bas has any sex life?”

“I don’t know about Le Bas,” said Templer, who had evidently been waiting since his arrival back from London for the right moment to make some important announcement about himself, “but I have. The reason I took the later train was because I was with a girl.”

“You devil.”

“I was a devil, I can assure you.”

“I suppose we shall have to hear about it,” said Stringham. “Don’t spare my feelings. Did you hold hands at the cinema? Where did you meet?”

“In the street.”

“Do you mean you picked her up?”

“Yes.”

“Fair or dark?”

“Fair.”

“And how was the introduction effected?”

“She smiled at me.”

“A tart, in other words.”

“I suppose she was, in a kind of way,” said Templer, “but quite young.”

“You know, Peter, you are just exactly the sort of boy my parents warned me against.”

“I went back to her flat.”

“How did you acquit yourself?”

“It was rather a success; except that the scent she used was absolutely asphyxiating. I was a bit afraid Le Bas might notice it on my clothes.”

“Not after the cigarette smoked by Jenkins’s uncle. Was it a well appointed apartment?”

“I admit the accommodation was a bit on the squalid side,” said Templer. “You can’t have everything for a quid.”

“That wasn’t very munificent, was it?”

“All I had. That was why I had to walk from the station.”

“You seem to have been what Le Bas would call ‘a very unwise young man’.”

“I see no reason why Le Bas should be worried by the matter, if he didn’t notice the scent.”

“What an indescribably sordid incident,” said Stringham. “However, let’s hear full details.”

“Not if you don’t want to be told them.”

“We do.”

Templer was supplying further particulars when Le