I was now wearing it in… and it was sodden from the day's rain.

Next to the bar were notices in a glass cabinet. The minutes of the North Eastern Railway's Clerks' Amateur Swimming

Club were posted up there. Membership was not up to its usual standard, the locomotive department having for some reason dropped out. I wondered whether it was to do with the strike: some York enginemen had been on strike for the best part of a month.

I looked above the bar: 5.45 p.m.

I would drink my pint before asking after my magazines, and I would have ten minutes' study. So I left the

Evening Press and, taking from my side coat pocket my

Railway Police Manual,

I sauntered over to one of the long wooden benches lining the room.

The book was set out like a police work dictionary, and I began at 'Accomplice' while supping at my pint. But the queer talk of the two snooker players kept breaking in. They were both weird-looking: something wild about them, but something half dead too. One had his black hair kept down by Brilliantine (or a superior sort of engine grease); the other's hair sprang up. But they had about the same quantity of hair, so I guessed they were brothers, and pretty close in age, too: middle-twenties or so. Brilliantine was making all the shots, although he wasn't a great hand at potting. Curly hair was just looking on. 'I like the red balls,' curly hair said, and a lot of spittle came with the words. 'I like them to stay up.' 'You're in luck then, en't you?' said Brilliantine, taking aim, and making another poor shot. 'Will I get a turn soon, our kid?' asked curly, who was evidently a bit cracked. 'You'll get what you're given.' No sound but that of missed shots for a while. 'I have a glass of beer but no cigarette,' said the crackpot. Brilliantine moved around the table, looking at the balls. 'Will I have a cigarette soon, our kid?' said the crackpot.