reading of books like that?'
Wilt stopped outside a lecture room in which Mr Ridgeway was fighting a losing battle with a class of first-year A-level students who didn't want to hear what on he thought about Bismark. 'Who said anything about encouraging students to read any particular books?' he asked above the din.
Mr Scudd's eyes narrowed. 'I don't think you quite understand the tenor of my questions,' he said, 'I am here...' He stopped. The noise coming from Ridgeway's class made conversation inaudible.
'So I've noticed,' shouted Wilt.
The County Advisor staggered to intervene. 'I really think, Mr Wilt,' he began, but Mr Scudd was staring maniacally through the glass pane at the class. At the back, a youth had just passed what looked suspiciously like a joint to a girl with yellow hair in Mohawk style who could have done with a bra.
'Would you say this was a typical class?' he demanded and turned back to Wilt to make himself heard.
'Typical of what?' said Wilt, who was beginning to enjoy the situation. Ridgeway's inability to interest or control supposedly high motivated A-level students would prepare Scudd nicely for the docility of Cake Two and Major Millfield.
'Typical of the way your students are allowed to behave.'
'My students? Nothing to do with me. That's History, not Communication Skills.' And before Mr Scudd could ask what the hell they were doing standing outside a classroom with bedlam going on inside, Wilt had walked on down the corridor. 'You still haven't answered my question,' said Mr Scudd when he had caught up.
'Which one?'
Mr Scudd tried to remember. The sight of that bloody girl had thrown his concentration. 'The one about the pornographic and revoltingly violent reading matter,' he said finally.
'Interesting,' said Wilt. 'Very interesting.'
'What's interesting?'
'That you read that sort of stuff. I certainly don't.'
They went up a staircase and Mr Scudd made use of the handkerchief he kept folded for decoration in his breast pocket. 'I don't read that filth,' he said breathlessly when they reached the top landing.
'Glad to hear it,' said Wilt.
'And I'd be glad to hear why you raised the issue.' Mr Scudd's patience was on a short leash.
'I didn't,' said Wilt, who, having reached the classroom in which Major Millfield was taking Cake Two, had reassured himself that the class was as orderly as he'd hoped. 'You raised it in connection with some historical literature you found in my office.'
'You call Lenin's State and Revolution historical literature? I most certainly don't. It's communist propaganda of a particularly virulent kind, and I find the notion that it's being fed to young minds in your department extremely sinister.'
Wilt permitted himself a smile. 'Do go on,' he said. 'There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to a highly trained intelligence leapfrogging common sense and coming to the wrong conclusions. It gives me renewed faith in parliamentary democracy.'
Mr Scudd took a deep breath. In a career spanning some thirty years of uninterrupted authority and bolstered by an inflation-linked pension in the near future, he had come to have a high regard for his own intelligence and he had no intention of having it disparaged now. 'Mr Wilt,' he said, 'I would be grateful to know what conclusions I am supposed to draw from the observations that the Head of Communication Skills at this College has a shelf full of works of Lenin in his office.'
