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seeing the Bursar this morning and I was thinking of inviting him to dinner on Wednesday.’
    Lady Mary looked up. ‘Wednesday’s no good. I have a meeting on. Thursday would be better,’ she said. ‘Doyou want me to invite anyone else? He’s a rather common little man, isn’t he?’
    ‘He has his good points,’ said the Master. ‘I’ll see if Thursday suits him.’ He went to his study with
The Times
. There were days when his wife’s moral intensity seemed to hang like a pall over his existence. He wondered what the meeting on Wednesday was about. Battered babies probably. The Master shuddered.
*
    In the Bursar’s office the telephone rang.
    ‘Ah, Master. Yes, certainly. No, not at all. In five minutes then.’ He put down the phone with a smile of quiet satisfaction. The bargaining was about to begin and the Master had not invited anyone else. The Bursar’s office overlooked the Fellows’ Garden and nobody else had taken the path under the beech-trees to the Master’s Lodge. As he left his office and walked across the lawn the Bursar reviewed the strategy he had decided on during the night. He had been tempted to put himself at the head of the Fellows in their opposition to any change. There were after all advantages to be gained in the climate of the seventies from adherence to the principles of strict conservatism, and in the event of the Master’s retirement or early death the Fellows might well elect him Master in his place out of gratitude. The Bursar rather fancied not. He lacked the carnivorous bonhomie that Porterhouse sought in its Masters. Old Lord Wurford for instance, Skullion’stouchstone, or Canon Bowel, whose penchant for Limburger cheese and rugby fanaticism had in a sinister way been interrelated. No, the Bursar could not see himself among their number. It was wiser to follow in his Master’s footsteps. He knocked on the door of the Master’s Lodge and was admitted by the French au pair.
    ‘Ah, Bursar, so good of you to come,’ said the Master, rising from his chair behind the large oak desk that stood in front of the fire. ‘Some Madeira? Or would you prefer something a little more contemporary?’ The Master chuckled. ‘A Campari, for instance. Something to keep the cold out.’ In the background the radiators gurgled gently. The Bursar considered the question.
    ‘I think something contemporary would be fitting, Master,’ he said at last.
    ‘So do I, Bursar, so I do indeed,’ said the Master, and poured the drinks.
    ‘Now then,’ he said when the Bursar had seated himself in an armchair, ‘to business.’
    ‘To business,’ said the Bursar raising his glass in the mistaken belief that a toast had been proposed. The Master eyed him cautiously.
    ‘Yes. Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve asked you here this morning to discuss the College finances. I understand from the Praelector that you and I share responsibility in this matter. Correct me if I am wrong?’
    ‘Quite right, Master,’ said the Bursar.
    ‘But of course as Bursar you are the real power. Iquite appreciate that,’ the Master continued. ‘I have no desire to impinge upon your authority in these matters, let me assure you of that.’ He smiled genially on the Bursar.
    ‘My purpose in asking you here this morning was to reassure you that the changes I spoke of last night were of a purely general nature. I seek no alterations in the administration of the College.’
    ‘Quite,’ said the Bursar, nodding with approval. ‘I entirely agree.’
    ‘So good of you to say so, Bursar,’ said the Master. ‘I had the impression that my little sally had a not altogether unmixed reception from the less … er … contemporary Senior Fellows.’
    ‘We are a very traditional college, Master,’ said the Bursar.
    ‘Yes, so we are, but some of us, I suspect, are rather less traditional than others, eh, Bursar?’
    ‘I think it’s fair to say so, Master,’ the Bursar assented.
    Like two elderly dogs they circled warily in