That just gives us time to persuade old Runcorn to write a leader about it, asking for volunteers to let them go from the top of the hill.”

Faith helped herself to another piece of cheese.

“I do hope it blows like hell,” she said.

V

Adeflated pig lay upon John Handiman’s desk; it was a sample of the latest batch, which Miss Foulkes had put there. Beneath it were two letters which had arrived by the morning post. John removed the pig and read them for the third time.

The first was from the Bank. It ran:

“Dear Mr. Handiman: I am disappointed to find that the promised payment into your company’s account has not materialised. You will realise of course that it is impossible for me to allow any further increase in the overdraft, which stands at £571 3s. 6d. and that provision must therefore be made for your Wages Cheque on Friday. I can only suggest that you take the necessary steps to ensure that the cheque due to you from your Agent is received by that date. …”

The second was from the company’s Agent in London. Certain currency difficulties, it said, had cropped up in connection with the Argentine payment. No doubt all would be well in the end, but the money had not yet arrived and no settlement could be expected for at least a week. “Meanwhile,” the Agent added, “we enclose a translation of the explanation we have received from the Argentine importer.”

The “explanation,” if it was one, was wrapped up in Latin courtesies. It spoke of pesos and Exchange controls as if they were the language of love; and the very literal translation finished with a flourish: “Your servants who kiss your hand.”

So this, thought John, was the end: not with a bang but a whimper. On an impulse he blew up the pig and stood it on his desk. Its long falsetto squeal was dying away when Miss Foulkes came in, and she regarded it with disapproval as the wrinkles began to appear on its back and with a final faint squeak it toppled over as if it had been pole-axed. She didn’t think that balloons in the shape of pigs were very funny. Then she noticed the bowl of scarlet peonies on the filing-cabinet and began to blush.

“The messenger-boy brought them and I put them in water,” said John, trying not to look at her. “There was no message.”

“Thank you. By the way,” she said briefly, “the shop stewards have called a meeting. It’s just starting now.”

The “shop stewards” were Jim and Joe. They were in fact the only Trade Unionists in the factory, and their title was an honorary one, bestowed upon them by Miss Foulkes.

“A meeting? Oh, yes. I suppose I ought to go and give them a sort of farewell talk or something. On the lines of ‘It was a good show while it lasted’?”

“This is a private meeting,” said Miss Foulkes, “for the workers.”

“Oh! All right. Enid,” he said, “I’m sorry about it all.”

“So am I.”

“I should have liked to do that job for the Festival. I wonder if we could carry on just long enough—”

“Wait and see,” snapped Miss Foulkes.

In the small yard at the back of the factory, a desolate place full of empty latex-containers, some of which had rolled down into the mud at the river’s edge and stuck there, with bits of old bicycles, motor tyres and a half-submerged punt, Jim was making a speech. It was a long, confused and rambling speech, which would surely have puzzled any student of industrial relations, and it was delivered in the voice of a raven with tonsillitis. The B. capitalists, Jim said, had made another B. muck-up.