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Winter with the distaste of one forced to reiterate a stale aphorism, ‘is never fully yielded us by port. Shoon?’
    Bussenschutt, without at all discomposing the geniality of his features, placed his lips in a whistling position and slowly mingled port and air. ‘I would not deny’, he said with irritating deliberation, ‘that a great claret is the true close to a meal.’
    ‘If only’, said Benton, ‘they would learn to decant such clarets only when the dessert is being placed on the table. You were remarking that you had heard from Shoon.’
    ‘To be sure – Shoon. You support me, my dear Benton, in the impression that the vintage ports are maturing more quickly than of old?’
    Benton, distracted between alluring topics, turned his head nervously from side to side somewhat like the donkey between two carrots. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I agree. And I wish we had laid down more 1917. And more 1920. We should feel much stronger.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I wish I knew Shoon.’
    ‘Shoon?’ said Bussenschutt dubiously, as if the name had been mentioned for the first time. ‘Oh, yes indeed. He has made a most interesting discovery. Winter, the decanter stands.’
    Winter, his own thoughts divided between the Spider and this alien but beguiling topic with which Bussenschutt was toying, pushed along the port. At the little table Mummery was making a long-drawn whiffling noise – his habit when engaged in concentrated eavesdropping.
    ‘Shoon’, said Bussenschutt, ‘has purchased a most remarkable papyrus.’ He cracked another walnut. ‘A document, my dear Winter, preserved on the ancient writing-material made from the stem of Cyperus Papyrus : you understand me?’ It was one of Bussenschutt’s most annoying tricks to affect momentary fits of abstraction during which he would address his colleagues as if they were junior undergraduates. He turned again to Benton. ‘You say we are insufficiently provided with 1917? A pity. It is a year that is already in very good condition.’
    ‘And 1920,’ said Benton.
    From the little table came a sound as of the final moments of an emptying bath. Mummery was expressing impatience and indignation.
    ‘1920?’ murmured Bussenschutt, looking at Benton with a great appearance of bewilderment. ‘Nay, my dear fellow: 407. I said 407.’ Mummery’s noises ceased abruptly. And in Winter’s mind the Eliots retreated defeated.
    ‘And with what’, said Bussenschutt, contriving to look round the table as if it were a little gathering in a lecture-room, ‘do we associate the year 407 bc? Let me tell you: it is with the rebuilding of the Erechtheum. And now let me say a word on papyri in general.’
    ‘Really, Master,’ said Benton, ‘this is an affectation in very poor taste. Both Winter and I are abundantly conversant with papyri in general. I wish–’
    ‘As you are aware, our extant papyri, with the exception of those discovered at Herculaneum, all come from Egypt. But this papyrus comes from Athens. It seems to be nothing less than one of those two on which we know from an inscription that there was entered a fair-copy of the expenses involved in the rebuilding of the Erechtheum. Palaeographically, it is likely to be of quite outstanding importance.’ Bussenschutt stretched out his hand for the decanter once more and abruptly ceased to address an imaginary class. ‘A first-rate find,’ he said. ‘Nothing quite so important since your dammed Codex.’
    And pronouncing the last words Dr Bussenschutt thrust his face into Benton’s and deliberately made a noise of the most primitive and blood-curdling hatred. In expressiveness it could not have been bettered by Mummery himself.
    Winter sighed – not unhappily. He was fond of extravagance, and here was a second extravagance presenting itself in the day. And he was a good deal more interested in Benton’s Codex than he was in the misfortunes of Timmy Eliot’s father. This manuscript had been a storm centre for