“Not all, surely,” the Rector suggested.

Dr. Mayne shot a glance at him. “I shouldn’t talk,” he said. “I really know nothing about such matters. Other half, if you please.”

Jenny thought: The Rector feels he ought to nip in and speak up for miracles, and he doesn’t like to because he doesn’t want to be parsonic. How tricky it is for them! Dr. Mayne’s the same, in his way. He doesn’t like talking shop for fear of showing off. English reticence — thought Jenny, resolving to make the point in her next letter home — incorrigible amateurs.

The restless young man suddenly said: “The next round’s on me,” and astonished everybody.

“Handsome offer!” said Major Barrimore. “Thank you, sir.”

“Tell me,” said the young man expansively and at large. “Where is this spring or pool or whatever it is?”

Patrick explained. “Up the hill above the jetty.”

“And the kid’s story is that some lady in green told him to wash his hands in it? And the warts fell off in the night. Is that it?”

“As far as I could make out,” Jenny agreed. “He’s not at all eloquent, poor Wally.”

“Wally Trehern, did you say? Local boy?”

“That’s right.”

“Were they bad? The warts?”

“Frightful.”

“Mightn’t they have been just kind of ripe to fall off? Coincidence?”

“Most unlikely, I’d have thought,” said Jenny.

“I see,” said the young man, weighing it up. “Well, what’s everybody having? Same again, all round?”

Everybody murmured assent and Major Barrimore began to pour the drinks.

Jenny said: “I could show you a photograph.”

“No? Could you, though? I’d very much like to see it. I’d be very interested, indeed. Would you?”

She ran up to her room to get it: a colour slide of the infant class with Wally in the foreground, his hands dangling. She put it in the viewer and returned to the bar. The young man looked at it intently, whistling to himself. “Quite a thing,” he said. “Quite something. Nice sharp picture, too.”