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‘Is this your foot, sir?’

‘It … is … indeed, … my … poor … friend.’

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Bellgrove.

‘Now … tell … me … Bellgrove, … tell … me …’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Are … you … unwell … my … poor … friend?’

‘Localized pain, sir.’

‘Would … it … be … the … mandibles …?’

‘That is so, sir.’

‘As … in … the … old … days … when … you … were … ambitious … When … you … had … ideals, … Bellgrove…. We … all … had … hopes … of … you, … I … seem … to … remember.’ (There was a horrible sound of laughter like porridge.)

‘Indeed, sir.’

‘Does … anyone … still … believe … in … you, … my … poor … poor … friend?’

There was no answer.

‘Come … come. It is not for you to resent your destiny. To … cavil … at … the … sere … and … yellow … leaf. Oh … no, … my … poor … Bellgrove, … you … have … ripened. Perhaps … you … have … over-ripened. Who … knows? We … all … go … bad … in … time. Do … you … look … about … the … same, … my … friend?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bellgrove.

‘I … am … tired,’ said Deadyawn. ‘What … am … I … doing … here? Where’s … that … virus … Mr … Fly?’

‘Sir!’ came the musket shot.

‘Get … me … out … of … this. Wheel … me … out … of … it … into stillness … Mr … Fly…. Wheel … me … into … the … soft … darkness …’ (His voice lifted into a ghastly treble, which though it was still empty and flat had in it the seeds of life.) ‘Wheel … me …’ (it cried) ‘into … the … golden … void.’

‘Right away, sir,’ said The Fly.

All at once it seemed as though the Professors’ Common-Room was full of ravenous seagulls, but the screaming came from the unoiled wheels of the high chair, which were slowly turning. The door handle was located by Flannelcat after a few moments’ fumbling and the door was pushed wide. A glow of light could be seen in the passage outside. Against this light the smoke-wreaths coiled, and a little later the high, fantastic silhouette of Deadyawn, like a sack at the apex of the rickety high chair made its creaking departure from the room like some high, black form of scaffolding with a life of its own.

The scream of the wheels grew fainter and fainter.

It was some while before the silence was broken. None present had heard that high note in the Headmaster’s voice before. It had chilled them. Nor had they ever heard him at such length, or in so mystical a vein. It was horrible to think that there was more to him than the nullity which they had so long accepted. However, a voice did at last break the pensive silence.

‘A very dry “do” indeed,’ said Crust.

‘Some kind of light, for grief’s sake!’ shouted Perch-Prism.

‘What can the time be?’ whimpered Flannelcat.

Someone had started a fire in the grate, using for tinder a number of Flannelcat’s copybooks, which he had been unable to collect from the floor. The globe of the world was put on top, which, being of some light wood, gave within a few minutes an excellent light, great continents peeling off and oceans bubbling. The memorandum that Slypate was to be caned, which had been chalked across the coloured face, was purged away and with it the boy’s punishment, for Mulefire never remembered and Slypate never reminded him.

‘My, my!’ said Cutflower, ‘if the Head’s subconscious ain’t self-conscious call me purblind, la! … call me purblind! What goings-on, la!’

‘What is the time, gentlemen? What can it be, if you please?’ said Flannelcat, groping for his exercise-books on the floor. The scene had unnerved him, and what books he had recovered from the floor kept falling out of his arms.

Mr Shrivell pulled one of them out of the fire and, holding it by a flameless corner, waved it for a moment before the clock.

‘Forty minutes to go,’ he said. ‘Hardly worth it … or is it? Personally, I think I’ll just …’

‘So will I, la!’ cried Cutflower. ‘If my class isn’t either on fire by now or flooded out, call me witless, la!’

The same idea must have been at the back of most of their minds, for there was a general movement towards the door, only Opus Fluke remaining in his decrepit arm-chair, his loaf-like chin directed