to tangle with Frensic & Futtle. There was no point in phoning the wretched man again. Stronger measures were needed now. He would have the bastard squealing the name of his client and there would be an end to all this talk of professional confidentiality. The situation was desperate and desperate remedies were called for. Frensic went downstairs and out into the street. Half an hour later, armed with a parcel that contained sandals, dark glasses, a lightweight tropical suit and a Panama hat, he returned to the office. All that was needed now was an ambulance-chasing libel lawyer. Frensic spent the rest of the morning going through Pause for a suitable identity and then phoned Ridley, Coverup, Makeweight and Jones, Solicitors of Ponsett House. Their reputation as shysters in cases of libel was second to none. Mr Makeweight would see Professor Facit at four.
At five to four Frensic, armed with a copy of Pause O Men for the Virgin and peering dimly through his tinted glasses, sat in the waiting-room and looked down at his sandals. He was rather proud of them. If anything distinguished him from Frensic, the literary agent, it was, he felt, those awful sandals.
'Mr Makeweight will see you now,' said the receptionist. Frensic got up and went down the passage to the door marked Mr Makeweight and entered. An air of respectable legal fustiness clung to the room. It didn't to Mr Makeweight. Small, dark and effusive, he was rather too quick for the furnishings. Frensic shook hands and sat down. Mr Makeweight regarded him expectantly. 'I understand you are concerned with a passage in a novel,' he said.
Frensic put the copy of Pause on the desk.
'Well, I am rather,' he said hesitantly. 'You see...well it's been drawn to my attention by some of my colleagues who read novels I am not a novel-reader myself you understand but they have pointed out...well I'm sure it must be a coincidence...and they have certainly found it very funny that...'
'That a character in this novel resembles you in certain ways?' said Mr Makeweight, cutting through Frensic's hesitations.
'Well I wouldn't like to say that he resembles me...I mean the crimes he commits...'
'Crimes?' said Mr Makeweight taking the bait. 'A character resembling you commits crimes? In this novel?'
'It's the name you see. Facit,' said Frensic leaning forward to open Pause at the page he had marked. 'If you read the passage in question you will see what I mean.'
Mr Makeweight read three pages and looked up with a concern that masked his delight. 'Dear me,' he said, 'I do see what you mean. These are exceedingly serious allegations. ',
'Well they are, aren't they?' said Frensic pathetically. 'And my appointment as Professor of Moral Sciences at Wabash has yet to be confirmed and, quite frankly, if it were thought for one moment...'
'I take your point,' said Mr Makeweight. 'Your career would be put in jeopardy.'
'Ruined,' said Frensic.
Mr Makeweight selected a cigar happily. 'And I suppose we can take it that you have never...that these allegations are quite without foundation. You have never for instance seduced one of your male students?'
'Mr Makeweight,' said Frensic indignantly.
'Quite so. And you have never had intercourse with a fourteen-year-old girl after dosing her lemonade with a barbiturate?'
'Certainly not. The very idea revolts me. And besides I'm not sure I would know how to.'
Mr Makeweight regarded him critically. 'No, I daresay you wouldn't,' he said finally. 'And there is no truth in the accusation that you habitually fail students who reject your sexual overtures?'
'I don't make sexual overtures to students, Mr Makeweight. As a matter of fact I am neither on the examining board nor do I give tutorials. I am not part of the University. I am over here on a
