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beard and talking about Gladstone. Actually he’s the same age as me. He’s one of the Lobby correspondents of the Watchman and they must have considered him promising to give him the job at his age. I fancy the Dylan profile was a sort of test of his abilities.
    “In my considered opinion,” he said, finishing a second glass of the Mazis-Chambertin which we were enjoying at the expense of the Law Society, “the political scene is a mess. It’s a two-horse race, and both the horses are losers. One of the parties is lumbered with the Unions – heaven save us from our friends – the other is weighted out by its old-school-tie image.”
    “Old port and ripe pheasant.”
    “The point is, they’re Them. With a capital T. The bosses’ party. The people who make money at the expense of Us.”
    “All right,” I said. “I’ll go along with that. It’s not a very profound diagnosis. Where does Dylan come into it?”
    “Dylan comes into it because he’s got a foot in both camps. And because both sides trust him, and need him. And my God, how the country needs him.”
    “You think he’s as good as that?”
    “I think that if he plays his cards properly he could be Prime Minister by the time he’s forty-five. The first Prime Minister, since Churchill in 1940, with the country more or less united behind him. If we could get that, we could lick the world. That’s why you’ve got to get someone to strangle Killey.” Patrick took another sip of his wine and added, “He ought really to have been strangled at birth.”
    “Maybe,” I said. “But he wasn’t. He’s right there in Wimbledon. Full of fight.”
    “This new thing he’s got hold of. It’s a criminal charge?”
    I said, “Yes,” unhappily. I hadn’t told Patrick any of the details, but since I needed his help I’d had to give him a general idea.
    “Then I suppose it must be embezzlement.”
    “Look, you mustn’t start spreading this round. It’s none of it proved, and it’s probably libellous.”
    “Discretion itself,” said Patrick earnestly.
    My heart sank. I know enough about newspaper men to know that they look on an exclusive bit of news like a fox looks at a fat duck.
    To change the subject, I said, “Tell me what you’ve found out about him so far.”
    “His father was a farm worker at a place called Chapel-en-le-Frith, who never earned more than three pounds a week in his life. He had a quiverful of daughters, then Will arrived. Will was the only son.”
    “His Benjamin.”
    “You’d think they’d have spoilt him. But they’re hard-headed folk up North. He went to the local school, like everyone else, and left at fifteen and got a lot of casual jobs, and when he was eighteen he got taken on as a pot-hand at ASIA. Perhaps I should explain–”
    I said, “ASIA is the Anglo-Scottish Independent Aluminium Smelter. I know a lot of this story already. But carry on. It’s interesting to hear it from the other side.”
    “ASIA was a grand conception. You know they found big bauxite deposits in Northern Ireland? They came to light during the war, when they were excavating anti-aircraft gun shelters. The supply was cheap and plentiful and it was easy to ship across to the Mersey. Once it was there, they had unlimited water-power from the big Magland and Ladybower reservoirs. And – what was most important of all – they had a market for the stuff. The Midlands were at the start of the post-war boom.”
    “It all sounds too good to be true.”
    “It was too good to be safe. The American and Canadian companies, who had the world market in their pocket at that time, decided to freeze it out. They lowered their prices, to rock-bottom and under. They reckoned they were big enough to take a year’s loss. Even two years. ASIA wasn’t. The management got worried. The banks threatened to withdraw their support.”
    “I’ve never understood about bankers,” I said. “You’d imagine, from their advertisements, that they were great