Lucky Jim

Dixon peered searchingly under the desk, into its top drawer, into the wastepaper-basket. 'Not here.'

The other's junket-coloured features stayed where they were. Til wait.'

'I won't.'

Dixon went away with the intention of ringing up the Welches from the Common Room phone. As he was passing the porter's office he heard Maconochie say: 'Ah, there he is now, Mr Michie,' and made his Eskimo face, which entailed, as well as an attempt to shorten and broaden his face by about half, the feat of abolishing his neck by sucking it down between his shoulders. This done, and the final effect held for a few seconds, he turned and saw Michie approaching.

'Ah, Mr Dixon, I hope you're not busy.'

Dixon knew exactly how well Michie knew exactly how and why he, Dixon, couldn't be busy. He said: 'No, not just at the moment. What can I do for you?'

'About your special subject for next year, sir.'

'Yes, what about it?' Until now, the intrigue had been mostly in Dixon's favour; the three pretty girls whom he was plotting to secure for his class had all seemed more 'interested' at their last discussion, while Michie's 'interest', though it hadn't declined, had shown no signs of increasing.

' Shall we go for a stroll on the lawn, sir? It seems a pity to be indoors on such a glorious day, doesn't it? About the syllabus, sir:

Miss O'Shaughnessy, Miss McCorquodale, Miss ap Rhys Williams, and I have all been into it very carefully together, and I think the feeling of the ladies is that the reading is a good deal on the heavy side. I don't myself think it is: as I said to them, a subject like this requires considerable background knowledge if it isn't to be quite meaningless.

But I'm afraid they weren't convinced. Being women, they're of rather more conservative temperament than ourselves. With Mr Goldsmith's Documents, for instance, they feel on safer ground. They're sure of what they're getting there.'

Dixon was fairly sure too, but he allowed Michie's voice to go on dinning in his ears while they emerged into the heavy, dizzying sunlight and crossed the tacky asphalt to the lawn in front of the main building.

Was Michie breaking to him the news that the three pretty girls were crying off and he himself was crying on? He would prevent that, if necessary by unlawful wounding. In a moment he said, without quite succeeding in keeping the plangency out of his voice: 'What am I supposed to do about it, then?'

Michie looked at him. His moustache seemed a size larger than usual; his Windsor-knotted silk tie toned unimprovably with his biscuit-coloured shirt; his lavender barathea trousers swayed gracefully with his walk.

"That's up to you, sir, of course,' he said, with a courtly minimum of surprise.

' I wonder if the thing could be cut down at all,' Dixon said, almost at random.

'I don't think there's much that could easily be sacrificed, Mr Dixon.

As far as I'm concerned, the broad basis is the chief attraction.'

This, at any rate, was worth knowing. A basis consisting of a single point - the geometrical entity having position, but no magnitude - was clearly the thing to work for.' Well, I'll have another look at it, anyway, and see if anything can be cut out.'

'Very well, sir,' Michie said, his demeanour that of a chief of staff about to put into action his general's unworkable plan. 'Will you get in touch with me, then, or shall I…?'

'I'll look through it tonight and see you about it in the morning, if that's convenient.'

'Certainly. Would you care to come to the Second-Year Common Room at about eleven? I'll ask the kdies to come, and we could all have a cup of coffee.'

'That'll be splendid, Mr Michie.'

"Thank you, Mr Dixon.'

After this Victorian, or variety-team, salutation, Dixon went back to the Common Room, which was now empty, and sat down at the phone.

Everything that might conceivably interest Michie must be slashed from the syllabus, even, or rather especially, what was indispensable. What did it matter? He'd probably never have to take the course. In that case why was he worrying about the 'interest' shown by Michie and the three pretty girls? He sighed, and picked up the phone.

Things at once happened very quickly. While, as he had reason to know, outgoing calls from the Welches' were liable to take some time, incoming ones were horrifyingly swift. Inless than a quarter of a minute Mrs Welch had said to him: 'Celia Welch speaking.'

He felt as if he'd crunched a cracknel biscuit; in his preoccupation he'd forgotten about Mrs Welch. Still, why worry? In an almost normal tone he said: 'Can I speak to Professor Welch, please?' "That's Mr Dixon, isn't it? Before I get my husband, I'd just like you to tell me, if you don't mind, what you did to the sheet and blankets on your bed when you…'