reflected) that they always seemed to have such difficulty in Chambers in reaching any positive decision about anything: one almost felt that there was some truth in the accusation, so often levelled at the Chancery Bar, that they were slow, reactionary, and out of touch with the modern world. Take, for example, the proposal to acquire a telex machine: it was now several months since the matter had first been raised; many valuable hours had been spent in discussion and investigation; the few trifling difficulties had been shown to be easily resolved, and it was surely beyond dispute that such a machine was nowadays indispensable to successful practise at the Bar. Yet still they had taken no active steps to acquire one — why ever not?
A week later the machine had been installed in the Clerks’ Room. (The advantages of this location were considered to outweigh the minor inconvenience of incoming messages sometimes being read by casual visitors to Chambers before being seen by the intended recipient.)
The members of Chambers had for the most part treated it with circumspect awe, as an object whose arcane mysteries were known only to the temporary typist. They would no more have thought of transmitting a message themselves than a suppliant at Delphi of consulting the oracle without the intervention of the priestess.
With Cantrip, however, it was otherwise. He had watched its installation with keen interest and had succeeded in obtaining from the engineer in charge some elementary guidance as to its use. Permitted to run his fingers over its chaste ivory keyboard and to discover with what exquisite sensitivity it responded to his lightest touch — deleting here, inserting there, amending elsewhere — the poor boy fell victim to as fatal a fascination as that exerted by Isolde over Tristan or Lesbia over Catullus.
He had spent the next three days in a delirium of telex-sending. The medium seemed to have a strangely liberating effect on his creative powers, enabling him to express his thoughts and feelings with a freedom and fluency which he had never before experienced. His messages, covering a wide range of topics and sometimes employing various ingenious noms de telex, were addressed not merely to his friends, acquaintances, and enemies in every corner of the world but often to total strangers whose telex number happened to become known to him. Could he have contented himself with mere composition, no harm would have come of it, but seldom if ever was he able to deny himself the ultimate rapture of pressing the key marked “Enter” to transmit the message to its destination.
It could not continue. After a perplexed inquiry from the Lord Chancellor’s Office about a message purporting to be from 10 Downing Street, but readily traceable to 62 New Square, and consisting of the peremptory command “Give Cantrip Silk,” strict instructions were given to the temporary typist to permit none of the members of Chambers to have direct access to the telex machine: from these, despite all Cantrip’s blandishments and the regard in which she held him, Lilian had conscientiously refused to depart.
On the morning following the day on which Cantrip left for the Channel Islands I found in Timothy’s letter box a communication of apparent urgency from the London Electricity Board, and knowing that he had made some arrangement with Henry for dealing with such matters, I turned aside on my way to the Public Record Office to deliver it at 62 New Square.
Though Henry himself had not yet arrived, the Clerks’ Room was uncustomarily crowded. Interest appeared to centre on the telex machine, round which were gathered several members of Chambers, the senior partner in a leading firm of solicitors, three or four articled clerks in a state of high amusement, and a slender, fair-haired girl whom I took to be Lilian, the new temporary typist. The message which engaged their attention had evidently been transmitted in Jersey earlier that morning.
TO THE SENIOR CLERK 62 NEW SQUARE ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE AND TREMENDOUSLY CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Henry,
As per your esteemed instructions I have started negotiating with your deserted wife re her claim for increased maintenance. She says with five children fifty pence a week is not enough. Have pointed out that as you never divorced your first wife in Singapore or the one in Buenos Aires she has no legal rights and is lucky to get anything, but she seems to know about the money in your Swiss bank account and how you got it, so you may want me to offer a bit more to keep her quiet. The children do look rather hungry. Awaiting your instructions
Your sincere friend and well-wisher,
Titus A. Newt
The pseudonym deceived no one. The question whether it would be proper, as it would plainly be politic, to remove and destroy the message before it was seen by Henry was still under discussion when his arrival rendered it academic. Thinking the moment un-propitious to my errand, I joined Selena and Ragwort in seeking shelter from his rage in Basil Ptarmigan’s room — a room of such serene and elegant distinction, its walls lined with centuries of legal learning, that Henry would not venture, it was felt, to give rein there to his indignation.
We found Basil in consultation with Julia, who had persuaded her instructing solicitors that for the purpose of the appeal from Mr. Justice Welladay’s recent decision it was essential to engage the services of leading Counsel: she and Basil were now deliberating the grounds of the appeal. The eminent Silk accepted our apologies for the interruption, courteously implying that company so agreeable and distinguished could never be considered intrusive. Selena explained why we were obliged to seek refuge.
“As you know,” said Basil, “I have always had grave doubts of the wisdom of installing a telex machine. Technology is responsible for much that is wrong with the modern world — now we are going to have Henry in one of his difficult moods, and we all know how tiresome that is for everyone.”
“I’m not sure,” said Julia, “that it’s the existence of telex machines that’s wrong with the modern world — I’m inclined to think it’s the existence of Cantrip. He’s sent me a telex as well, and its contents are rather disturbing. Perhaps the rest of you would care to read it while Basil and I finish drafting our notice of appeal.”
TELEX M. CANTRIP TO J. LARWOOD TRANSMITTED GRAND HOTEL ST. HELIER 9:00 A.M. FRIDAY 27TH APRIL
Yoo-hoo there, Larwood, me here. All right so far advicewise, but thought you ought to know about chap here called Edward Malvoisin casting vile aspidistras on fair name of J. Larwood. Don’t worry, I got him sorted out all right — jolly lucky I did, bet you’ll never guess who was listening.
This Malvoisin chap is the Jersey lawyer for these characters I’m meant to be advising. Seemed like a pretty good egg to start off with — met me at the airport yesterday P.M., whizzed me off to the Grand Hotel, and began pouring booze down me like there was no tomorrow, so I took a pretty genial view of him.
I suppose you know the Grand Hotel — all potted plants and wickerwork, with the waiters still getting over the excitement of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. It’s the sort of place where you’d expect to find my Uncle Hereward, sitting on the veranda chatting with his ex-army cronies about the great days of Empire. That reminds me, I meant to tell you — the old boy’s been threatening to come up to London for a few days. If he turns up before I get back, don’t let him get into any trouble. He’s fairly harmless really if you know how to handle him.
Where was I? Oh yes — me and the Malvoisin chap in the bar of the Grand Hotel. It was fairly early still, and we had it pretty much to ourselves. No one else around except a chap reading
The way your name cropped up was because I was telling Malvoisin I was in 62 New Square and he said he knew a bird in 63, and I said I knew a bird in 63 as well and they both turned out to be you. So of course we wittered on about you for a bit and to start off with he seemed to have pretty sound views on the subject, viz that you were hot stuff on double tax treaties and fanciable with it.
Only then he gave me a funny sort of look and said something like what a pity it was about you being the way you are. At first I thought what he was talking about was just your general sort of goopiness, and I pointed out that one didn’t mind it once one got used to it and anyway it wasn’t your fault. Then he gave me another funny look and said something about people in London being very broad-minded, and it turned out that what he thought was that you were like those ancient Greek birds who fancied other birds instead of chaps.
I don’t know how he got the idea, I expect it’s because you’re always talking bits of Latin. Anyway, I told him he was talking codswallop and you were one of the keenest chap fanciers I knew. He wouldn’t believe it at first but
