‘Two whiskeys and soda please, George.’

‘Just a needle for me,’ said Peter.

‘Of whiskey, sir?’

Peter shot him a look—soda, fool.

‘Ignore him, George, he’s sulking,’ said Manfred.

‘Ignore me, George, I’m sulking.’

George shed a helpless look and shuffled off. Peter pulled a checkbook from his pocket and began to write.

Manfred understood. It wasn’t the money, it was the losing. Not once, but twice; first at squash racquets, now at backgammon. The squash had also been a close-run thing. Evenly matched ever since their days on the varsity team at Yale, Peter’s fitness had dipped a little of late and Manfred had duly developed a hateful little dropshot. Their Thursday game was a regular fixture, and had been since the end of the war. Sometimes they played at the Yale Club down on Vanderbilt Avenue. More often than not the New York Racquet and Tennis Club was the chosen venue, as it was today. Built on a prime patch of Park Avenue, the vast building resembled a Florentine Renaissance palazzo, with rusticated arches and stone walls as thick as a prison, a prison designed to keep unsavory types out rather than in. The interiors were grand yet austere, the physical embodiment of the ideals of the gentleman sportsman, and members still stepped on to its hallowed courts clad in Brooks Brothers flannels, Oxford-cloth shirts and Indian cotton jumpers.

Peter handed over the check. ‘You’re going to have to make it up to me,’ he said.

Manfred smiled, reaching for one of Peter’s cigarettes and lighting it. ‘Jarvis Steel Company.’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘They’re based in Union, New Jersey. They make a range of tool steels, nickel bearing alloys, that kind of thing. They’ve paid dividends every year since 1903. Very sound.’

‘Very boring.’

‘A little. Till now.’

Peter leaned forward, intrigued.

‘Their metallurgical laboratory in Reading has just patented a corrosion-resistant alloy,’ Manfred went on. ‘They’re calling it Jarvis Number 10. I won’t bother you with the technical details. Let’s just say the results of the tests are, well, very impressive according to my man.’