"Very good," said her grandfather approvingly. "And now," he added, turning back to Will Farnaby, "after the psychological first aid, let's see what can be done for poor old Brother Ass. I'm Dr. Robert MacPhail, by the way. Who are you?"

"His name's Will," said Mary Sarojini before the young man could answer. "And his other name is Far-something."

"Farnaby, to be precise. William Asquith Farnaby. My father, as you might guess, was an ardent Liberal. Even when he was drunk. Especially when he was drunk." He gave vent to a harsh derisive laugh strangely unlike the full-throated merriment which had greeted his discovery that there was really nothing to make a fuss about.

"Didn't you like your father?" Mary Sarojini asked with concern.

"Not as much as I might have," Will answered.

"What he means," Dr. MacPhail explained to the child, "is that he hated his father. A lot of them do," he added parenthetically.

Squatting down on his haunches, he began to undo the straps of his black bag.

"One of our ex-imperialists, I assume," he said over his shoulder to the young man.

"Born in Bloomsbury," Will confirmed.

"Upper class," the doctor diagnosed, "but not a member of the military or county subspecies."

"Correct. My father was a barrister and political journalist. That is, when he wasn't too busy being an alcoholic. My mother, incredible as it may seem, was the daughter of an archdeacon. An archdeacon,'" he repeated, and laughed again as he had laughed over his father's taste for brandy.

Dr. MacPhail looked at him for a moment, then turned his attention once more to the straps.

"When you laugh like that," he remarked in a tone of scientific detachment, "your face becomes curiously ugly."

Taken aback, Will tried to cover his embarrassment with a piece of facetiousness. "It's always ugly," he said.