Oxford. Fortunately, for he was as scrimp and meagre as Francis Feeble, he didn’t have to do any running; his morning round of half a dozen pubs was accomplished at a leisurely pace, for Inspector Heyhoe was the last man to look for trouble, though he found it everywhere; and besides he liked a little flutter himself. Regularly at twelve o’clock Timms brought the betting-slips to the Red Lion, where he met his employer, and they drank together till closing time, doing a bit of business now and then. At night they went round the pubs wearing broad and benevolent smiles as they distributed largesse in furtive little envelopes to those of their clients who happened to have won. It was a pleasant, profitable and not a very arduous existence if you had no particular desire to look upon the world with a clear and sober eye; and neither of them had any such ambition.

“Now take those knights,” Mr. Oxford went on, prodding a fat finger into the poster, which was still sticky with printing ink. “Just like the good old ’Ome Guard, I bet they was, comin’ in ’ere arter the battle for their pints of mead or sack or whatever they drank in those days. There’s tradition for you!”

“Quite right, old man.”

“What’s more,” said Mr. Oxford, “I’ve heard that battles were nice comfortable affairs then, nothing like Arras and the Somme where we got our feet wet, and I dare say the ’habitants of this town were standing on the touchline ’avin’ a bet on the result: just like you and me at a game of football. An Englishman will bet on anything.”

“Just like you said; tradition,” echoed Timms dutifully.

“I knew a Rechabite once,” mused Mr. Oxford, “who had two children called Peter and Josephine; and although he disapproved of ’orse-racing, he had a standing order with me for five bob each way every time an ’orse ran with Peter or Josephine in its name. He put his winnings into Savings Certificates for his kids. But Josephine didn’t get much, did she, Timms?”

Timms shook his head.

“The name was too uncommon,” said Mr. Oxford. “But it just shows you: an Englishman, be he Rechabite or racing-man, will bet on anything. For example, there’s Sir Halmeric wantin’ to ’ave a pony with me on the Beauty Comp. Two to one bar one, Sir Halmeric, two to one bar!”

“Which d’you bar?” asked Sir Almeric swiftly.

“We’ll discuss it together later,” said Mr. Oxford with fine sensibility. “It wouldn’t be right to bandy the names of ladies about over the counter, like. But, as I say”—he jabbed the poster again— “that’s tradition, that’s England. And these Communists or whoever they are that are kicking up such a row, they ain’t got no tradition, they ain’t what I call English.”

“I’d put the rats up against a wall,” said Sir Almeric.

“That’s right. Shoot ’em,” said Timms into his whisky glass. “Jolly good tradition.”

Just then John Handiman came into the bar and Florrie made haste to serve him.

“You look tired, dearie,” she said. “Need a nice glass of stout to buck you up.”

An empress in black lace with jet buttons and a pink artificial rose, she had ruled over the Red Lion Bar for nearly thirty years. Like a constitutional monarch, although she took no part in the conduct of affairs, she had a clearer view than the more active participants of everything that went on. She knew all about the balloon factory and John Handiman’s financial troubles, and because it was unusual for him to drink in the morning she guessed that he was on his way to or from an uncomfortable interview at the Bank. She knew all about the ups-and-downs of the Festival too, about the midnight doings of Miss Foulkes, about the Beauty Queens’ quarrel and about the tentative and tangled courtship of the Beauty Queens by Robin and Lance. She knew that Sir Almeric hadn’t as much money as he pretended to have and that Mr. Oxford had a great deal more; that Mr. Gurney made a good thing out of selling “antique” furniture with artificial worm-holes in it, and that Stephen’s bookshop was tottering to its ruin.