Runcorn had already employed “pulchritude” twice; so his old eyes in search of a synonym fixed themselves upon the trim head of Miss Smith, the plucked eyebrows, the darkened lashes and the well-powdered nose.

Miss Smith, however, deep in a brown study, was unconscious of his stare. She, too, was in search of a word, but she didn’t mind what it meant so long as it was sufficiently mellifluous and began with a V. For a long time she had been troubled about the ordinariness of her surname, which whenever she shut her eyes she was apt to see in large shining letters upon a cinema screen: “Starring Virginia Smith.” But “Smith” was clearly impossible, and since she firmly believed that her success in the semi-final had brought her one step nearer to Hollywood, the problem of a substitute now became urgent. The prize for the winner of the Beauty Competition was a film-test; thence it was but a short step to becoming a Starlet, and thence to a Star. Most of her favourite film-stars bore alliterative names, but her vocabulary was somewhat limited and she knew very few words beginning with V. “Virginia Vale” had tempted her, but she thought it sounded rather like a suburb or a telephone exchange, and now she was weighing up the respective merits of Virtue and Verity. For this purpose she shut her eyes until she could feel the long lashes tickling and watched in her imagination the familiar flickering screen with the incandescent captions: “Starring James Mason and Virginia Verity,” “Starring Virginia Virtue and Stewart Granger.” She was thus occupied when a banshee scream, rather like a railway engine’s whistle only hoarser and more throaty, awakened her out of her daydream with a start.

It was the voice-pipe by which the office downstairs communicated with Mr. Runcorn and vice-versa. This horrible instrument, which she felt sure was full of spit, had been a daring innovation when it was first installed about 1850; and Mr. Runcorn, who now had a telephone on his desk, nevertheless obstinately insisted that the voice-pipe should still be used for speaking between the offices. In order to work it you took a deep breath, put your lips to the mouthpiece, and blew. This produced the whistle. Thereafter you shouted your message in such a loud voice that the person below would hear you even without the aid of the instrument. Its use, in fact, was simply a convention, quite unrelated to any utilitarian end.

With revulsion, Miss Smith put her shell-pink ear to the repellent mouthpiece and felt a scorching sirocco blowing into it, which was the spotty office boy’s breath. When it had blown itself out she wiped the mouthpiece with a tiny blue handkerchief and cautiously spoke into it, removing her lips from it very quickly lest they should be contaminated by the office boy’s reply. A wheezing noise came out of the pipe, and she shouted “Speak louder” at the top of her voice. He did so, and she was able to hear him through the worm-eaten floorboards: “The Mayor to see the Boss.” Mr. Runcorn, who had also heard although he was several yards from the voice-pipe, looked up from his writing and inclined his head. She shouted back “Send him up, please,” and the office boy’s shrill unbroken tenor came up through the floor: “Okay.”

The Mayor was a small sandy man called John Wilkes, who invariably signed his Christian name as Jno. He was without presence, dignity or ambition, and he was always in a hurry because he was always “doing things for people.” He had been chosen as Mayor for no other reason than this: that he was kind. And because he was also humble, so that none of the Councillors had cause to be jealous of him, he looked like remaining in office until he died; for there was no great competition for the Mayoralty of the small decaying town. The little man was literally killing himself with kindness, for he could never bring himself to say no to anybody who asked him to do anything for them. He lived in a state of perpetual breathlessness.

He now burst into the room, greeted Mr. Runcorn, and rushed across to shake Miss Smith’s hand and congratulate her upon her success. Her mouth was full of antiseptic lozenges, so she said nothing, but fluttered her eyelids at him and gave him what she believed to be an enigmatic smile. “Really, Runcorn,” he said, “you’re a lucky dog, you know: sitting in here all day with nothing to do but stare at a Beauty Queen! Poor me, I’ve just come from the Council and now I’m off to a Festival Committee.”

He threw himself into the visitor’s chair opposite Mr. Runcorn’s desk.

“Frankly, I’m worried about the Festival. There seems no interest, no real enthusiasm at all. I say to them, ‘Let’s relive our glorious ’istory,’ and they only shrug their shoulders. I tell ’em it’ll help to earn dollars for the country, and they just don’t care.