Well, as the sign in Selfridge's says, or used to say, 'all breakages must be paid for.' " This drew a few titters, though Nick wasn't sure it struck the right tone. "We're honoured by the presence of statesmen, and film stars, and I suspect Tobias is thoroughly flattered that so many members of Her Majesty's government were able to be here. My witty daughter, I understand, has said that it's 'not so much a party as a party conference.'" Uncertain laughter, through which, with good timing: "I only hope I get to play an equally important role when we meet at Blackpool in October." The MPs chuckled amiably at this, though the Home Secretary, who'd taken the epithet of statesman more gravely than the rest, smiled inscrutably at the coffee cup in front of him. Russell said "Good girl!" quite loudly, and clapped a couple of times.

"Now, as you may have heard," Gerald went on, with a delayed quick glance in their direction, "Toby is twenty-one today. I had been going to give you Dr Johnson's well-known lines on 'long-expected one-and-twenty,' but when I looked them up again last night I found I didn't know them quite as well as I thought, or indeed as well as many of you, I'm sure, do." Here Gerald looked down at the card in a marvellously supercilious way. " 'Lavish of your grandsire's guineas,' says the Great Cham, 'Bid the slaves of thrift farewell… When the bonny blade carouses, Pockets full, and spirits high, What are acres? What are houses? Only dirt, or wet and dry.' So: far from suitable advice to the grandson and nephew of great bankers, or for any young person coming of age in our splendid property-owning democracy. And the question of wet versus dry, of course, is one on which indecision is no longer acceptable."

Through the generous laughter Nick caught Toby's eye again, and held it for two or three long seconds, giving him perhaps a transfusion of reassurance. Toby himself would be too nervous to listen to his father's speech properly, and was laughing in imitation of the others, not at the jokes themselves.