“Don’t mind Smith, now,” said Dr. Ackrington. “He’s not here and he won’t be here. I passed him in Harpoon. He was turning in at a pub and by the look of him it was not the first by two or three. Don’t mind him. He’s better away.”

“He got a cheque from Home yesterday,” said Simon, in his strong New Zealand dialect. “Boy, oh boy!”

“Don’t speak like that, dear,” said his mother. “Poor Mr. Smith, it’s such a shame. He’s a dear fellow at bottom.”

“Will you allow me to read this letter, or will you not?”

“Do read it, dear. Is it from Home?”

Dr. Ackrington struck the table angrily with the flat of his hand. His sister leant back in her chair, Colonel Claire stared out through the windows, and Simon and Barbara, after the first two sentences, listened eagerly. When he had finished the letter, which he read in a rapid uninflected patter, Dr. Ackrington dropped it on the table and looked about him with an air of complacency.

Barbara whistled. “I say,” she said — “Geoffrey Gaunt! I say.”

“And a servant. And a secretary. I don’t quite know what to say, James,” Mrs. Claire murmured. “I’m quite bewildered. I really don’t think…”

“We can’t take on a chap like that,” said Simon loudly.

“And why not, pray?” his uncle demanded.

“He’d be no good to us and we’d be no good to him. He’ll be used to posh hotels and slinging his weight about with a lot of English servants. What’d we do with a secretary and a manservant? What’s he do with them anyway?” Simon went on with an extraordinary air of hostility. “Is he feeble-minded or what?”

“Feeble-minded!” cried Barbara. “He’s probably the greatest living actor.”

“Well, he can have it for mine,” said Simon.

“For the love of heaven, Agnes, can’t you teach your son an intelligible form of speech?”

“If the way I talk isn’t good enough for you, Uncle James…”