“Here’s your number, then. Carry on,” she said.

But carrying on was not so easy. There is a steel spring on the combination transmitter-receiver which you must hold down while you talk. I kept forgetting it. Also I kept being electrically shocked. But in the course of half an hour, with the operator’s assistance, I managed to convey to the gentleman an invitation to call.

He came, and we started for the Bow Street police station, where every visitor has to register within twenty-four hours of his arrival. On the way we met Lew Payne, the actor, and Gene Corri, racing man and box-fight referee. Gene has friends among the bobbies, and I was put through in record time. They told me I’d have to go to the American consul for a visé and then come back for a second registration with the police. Mr. O’Flaherty opined that these jobs should be attended to at once, as my boat train was supposed to leave at nine tomorrow morning. Mr. Payne had a better idea.