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By Root 8882 0

him and his disgrace. For disgrace there would be. The publicity he had once evoked on his own behalf assured it. How was his aunt going to feel now? And Geoff? The few people who believed in him? Hugh conceived a last gigantic pogrom; in vain. It seemed, finally, almost a comfort that his mother and father were dead. As for the senior tutor of his college, it wasn't likely he would care to welcome a freshman just dragged through the divorce courts; dread words. The prospect seemed horrible, life at an end, the only hope to sign on another ship immediately it was all over, or if possible, before it all began.

Then, suddenly, a miracle occurred, something fantastic, unimaginable, and for which to this day Hugh could find no logical explanation. All at once Bolowski dropped the whole thing. He forgave his wife. He sent for Hugh and, with the utmost dignity, forgave him. The divorce suit was withdrawn. So were the plagiarism charges. It was all a mistake, Bolowski said. At worst the songs had never been distributed, so what damage had been done? The sooner it was all forgotten the better. Hugh could not believe his ears: nor in memory believe them now, nor that, so soon after everything had seemed so completely lost, and one's life irretrievably ruined, one should, as though nothing had happened, Have calmly gone up to--

"Help."

Geoffrey, his face half covered with lather, was standing in the doorway of his room, beckoning tremulously with a shaving brush and Hugh, throwing his ravaged cigar into the garden, rose and followed him in. He normally had to pass through this interesting room to reach his own (the door of which stood open opposite, revealing the mowing-machine) and at the moment, Yvonne's being occupied, to reach the bathroom. This was a delightful place, and extremely large for the size of the house; its windows, through which sunlight was pouring, looked down the drive towards the Calle Nicaragua. The room was pervaded by some sweet heavy scent of Yvonne's, while the odours of the garden filtered in through Geoff's open bedroom window.

"The shakes are awful, did you never have the shakes?" the Consul was saying, shivering all over: Hugh took the shaving brush from him and began to relather it on a tablet of fragrant asses'-milk soap lying in the basin. "Yes, you did, I remember. But not the rajah shakes."

"No--no newspaperman ever had the shakes." Hugh arranged a towel about the Consul's neck. "You mean the wheels."

"The wheels within wheels this is."

"I deeply sympathize. Now then, we're all set. Stand still."

"How on earth can I stand still?"

"Perhaps you'd better sit down."

But the Consul could not sit down either.

"Jesus, Hugh, I'm sorry. I can't stop bouncing about. It's like being in a tank--did I say tank? Christ, I need a drink. What have we here?" The Consul grasped, from the window-sill, an uncorked bottle of bay rum. "What's this like, do you suppose, eh? For the scalp." Before Hugh could stop him the Consul took a large drink. "Not bad. Not at all bad," he added triumphantly, smacking his lips. "If slightly underproof... Like pernod, a little. A charm against galloping cockroaches anyway. And the polygonous proustian stare of imaginary scorpions. Wait a minute, I'm going to be--"

Hugh let the taps run loudly. Next door he heard Yvonne moving about, getting ready to go to Tomalín. But he'd left the radio playing on the porch; probably she could hear no more than the usual bathroom babel.

"Tit for tat," the Consul, still trembling, commented, when Hugh had assisted him back to his chair. "I did that for you once."

"Sí, hombre! Hugh, lathering the brush again on the asses'-milk soap, raised his eyebrows. "Quite so. Better now, old fellow?"

"When you were an infant," the Consul's teeth chattered. "On the P. O. boat coming back from India... The old Cocanada'

Hugh resettled the towel around his brother's neck, then, as if absent-mindedly obeying the other's wordless instructions, went out, humming, through the bedroom back to the porch, where the radio was now stupidly playing Beethoven in