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pressed," he answered, perhaps in reference to his colleagues who, this holiday morn, must be enjoying a long lie abed. "I know better than to get the wrong side of Mrs Blain," he explained, rather more soberly. Then he went on, back in the part once more.
    "I always say, as a matter of fact I insist in the office, that we are all members of a team, helping others to help themselves."
    "It's all very well, but there'll be a cup and saucer short, Sebastian."
    "Well I can wash mine, can't I?" he demanded, falsetto now. "And my lipstick's lovely. It never comes off."
    "You'd better," she said. "I don't use any, as you could tell if you looked."
    At this moment, when Sebastian might not have known how to reply, for he was a shy fellow, Dakers, the law tutor, came in.
    "Morning all," the man said.
    "Hullo Sebastian. I thought we were not to have the honour this forenoon. D'you know I almost fancy it may eventually turn out to be rather a fine day."
    "It's like this, Dakers," Winstanley said. "The lad here was detained. Calls on his time have been heavy of late," she explained, with malice. Mr Birt pettishly frowned into his cup at this open allusion to the hours he spent with Elizabeth.
    "The guv'nor consulted me last night," Dakers said. He had not missed the implications in Winstanley's last remark. He had a particular sort of loyalty towards the young woman. He wished to warn them both.
    "Edge? Consulted you? What on earth about?" Winstanley asked.
    "Oh, she wanted me to run through the original Directive from the Ministry, which relates to the cottage held by our fabulous pensioner, Rock," Mr Dakers explained. Seated up to the table, he was now engaged in rather nervously rearranging the knives and forks on each side of a porridge plate.
    "And which shelters his granddaughter Elizabeth," Mr Birt added, still with his highest falsetto, but which had an edge to it, a squeal of unease.
    "The unremunerated opinion of a lawyer is not worth a rap," Dakers assured them, raising the spoon at last. "But I had to tell her, and, since no-one else is here, I'll pass it on." Then he broke off to put some porridge in his mouth. "I don't think we have a leg to stand on. It's his for life," he said.
    "How Machiavellian," Birt exclaimed shrilly. "You mean he can defy each and every one, the guv'nor included? Well, everything's perfect then, isn't it?"
    "What I mean, and why I chose this moment, is that she'll cast about her to find some other way out, my dear fellow."
    A grey line of milk escaped from a corner of his mouth. He dabbed at it, as though he had cut himself shaving.
    They prudently joined together to change the topic, did not refer to it again.
     
    When Mr Rock got back to his cottage from the house he was tired and out of breath, because the swill buckets had been particularly heavy this fine morning. He noticed the postman had called and bent down with a groan to pick some envelopes off the mat. He always paid his small bills in cash with the result that his correspondence, which came to about half a dozen letters every day, was made up of complimentary resolutions passed by various scientific societies, letters from students, or maniacs and so on; at least that is what Mr Rock believed, because, for some years now, this distinguished man had not opened a single one of the communications he received. Instead he always put them unexamined into a travelling trunk which was on the floor just inside the living room, and which he used for nothing else. He sat down on it today, looked at each envelope back and front because he expected to hear the result of the election. But there was no trace of an O.M.S. (On Majesty's Service; they had left out the His, long since, as being unworthy of the times). On the other hand there was a private letter which might be from young Hargreaves. But then, Mr Rock asked himself, what point could there be in finding out, it would not advantage him in what he termed his battle for the place, the roof