She is most engaging; promised to go and see her hospital and tell her how to run it. Very pleasant dinner on Sunday – everybody in great form; we played at comfits. Alick came in after; he says we lost forty thousand men in the last attack, but the French lost more. I expressed the opinion that it was very serious. No one took it.” ’

Dinny laughed. ‘Were there such people?’

‘Were there not, my dear! Most valuable fellows; what we should have done without them – the way they kept their ends up and their courage and their conversation – the thing had to be seen to be believed. And almost all of them won the war. Saxenden was especially responsible. He had an active job all the time.’

‘What job?’

‘Being in the know. He was probably more in the know than anybody else on earth, judging by what he says. Remarkable constitution, too, and lets you see it: great yachtsman.’

‘I shall look forward to him.’

‘Snubby,’ sighed her uncle, ‘is one of those persons at whom it is better to look back. Would you like to stay the night, Dinny, or are you going home?’

‘Oh, I must go back tonight. My train’s at eight from Paddington.’

‘In that case I’ll lope you across the Park, give you a snack at Paddington, and put you into the train.’

‘Oh! don’t bother about me, Uncle Lawrence.’

‘Let you cross the Park without me, and miss the chance of being arrested for walking with a young female! Never! We might even sit, and try our luck. You’re just the type that gets the aged into trouble. There’s something Botticellian about you, Dinny. Come along.’

It was seven o’clock of the September evening when they debouched into Hyde Park, and, passing under the plane trees, walked on its withered grass.

‘Too early,’ said Sir Lawrence, ‘owing to Daylight Saving. Indecorum isn’t billed till eight. I doubt if it will be any use to sit, Dinny. Can you tell a disguised copper when you see him? It’s very necessary. The bowler hat – for fear of being hit on the head too suddenly; they always fall off in books; tendency to look as if he weren’t a copper; touch of efficiency about the mouth – they complete their teeth in the force; eyes a trifle on the ground when they’re not on you; the main man dwelling a little on both feet, and looking as if he had been measured for something. Boots of course – proverbial.’

Dinny gurgled.

‘I tell you what we might do, Uncle Lawrence. Stage an accost. There’ll be a policeman at the Paddington Gate. I’ll loiter a little, and accost you as you come up. What ought I to say?’

Sir Lawrence wrinkled up an eyebrow.

‘So far as I can recollect, something like: “How do, ducky? Your night out?” ’

‘I’ll go on, then, and let that off on you under the police-man’s nose.’

‘He’d see through it, Dinny.’

‘You’re trying to back out.’

‘Well, no one has taken a proposition of mine seriously for so long. Besides, “Life is real, life is earnest, and the end is not the gaol”!’

‘I’m disappointed in you, Uncle.’

‘I’m used to that, my dear. Wait till you’re grave and reverend, and see how continually you will disappoint youth.’

‘But think: we could have whole columns of the newspapers devoted to us for days. “Paddington Gate accosting incident: Alleged Uncle.” Don’t you hanker to be an alleged uncle and supersede the affairs of Europe? Don’t you even want to get the Police into trouble? Uncle, it’s pusillanimous.’

‘Soit!’ said Sir Lawrence: ‘One uncle in the Police Court per day is enough. You’re more dangerous than I thought, Dinny.’

‘But, really, why should those girls be arrested? That all belongs to the past, when women were under-dogs.’

‘I am entirely of your way of thinking, Dinny, but the Nonconformist conscience is still with us, and the Police must have something to do. Without adding to unemployment it’s impossible to reduce their numbers.