Bertie van Tahn prepared to use his towel as a weapon of precision, but reflecting that he had a good deal of unprotected coastline himself, and that Clovis was equipped with a fountain-pen as well as a towel, he relapsed pacifically into the depths of his chair.

“May one hear extracts from the immortal work?” he asked. “I promise that nothing that I hear now shall prejudice me against borrowing a copy of the Smoky Chimney at the right moment.”

“It’s rather like casting pearls into a trough,” remarked Clovis pleasantly, “but I don’t mind reading you bits of it. It begins with a general dispersal of the Durbar participants: