Miss Allison, sedately avoiding Jim Kane's eye, wondered what young Mr. Harte would find to do in a household containing herself in attendance upon an old lady of over eighty years, and Silas Kane. He enlightened her. "Are there any decent films on in Portlaw this month, Miss Allison?" he inquired. "I don't mean muck about love and that sort of thing, but really good films, with G men and gangsters and things."

Miss Allison confessed ignorance but said that she would obtain a list of the entertainments offered.

"Oh, thanks awf'ly; but I can easily buzz into Portlaw on my bike," said Mr. Harte. "I sent it by train, and I dare say it'll be at the station now, though actually when you send things by train they don't arrive until years after you do." He refreshed himself with a draught of ginger beer and added with a darkling look across the table: "As a matter of fact, it was complete drivel sending it by train at all; but some people seem to think nothing matters but their own rotten paint work."

Jim Kane, at whom this embittered remark was levelled, grinned amiably and recommended his stepbrother to put a sock in it.

Miss Allison glanced down the long table to where her employer was seated. Old Mrs. Kane, who was over eighty, had been carried downstairs to grace her son's birthday party, not against her wishes (for she would have thought it impossible that any function should be held at Cliff House without her), but firmly denying any expectation of enjoyment. "I shall have Joseph Mansell on my right and Clement on my left," she decreed.

Miss Allison, who filled the comprehensive role of companion-secretary to Emily Kane, ventured to suggest that more congenial dinner partners might be found than the two selected by her employer.