The Secret Chronicles of Henry Dashwood, Vol. 2

'Many good schools now offer French and German as well as the classics. But it's hardly surprising that Europeans are more needful to learn our language because English is the world's most important lingua franca.' 'I'm afraid that I must side with Mr. Dashwood,' said Professor Pachnos. 'On the other hand, an English colleague of mine who died some years ago spoke perfect French, Italian and Spanish as well as being fluent in Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi.' Childhood memories came back to me of how distressed my mother had been to hear the news that a cousin of hers, who was a famous archaeologist noted for his linguistic gifts, had died suddenly and I asked the Professor: 'Would you be talking of the late Henry Layard, by any chance, sir?'

'Yes, I am,' he answered. 'Henry and I worked together on 'digs' in Crete and also briefly in Constantinople. But why do you ask? Have you read his scholarly treatise on the remains of Nineveh?' I replied with a hint of pride: 'We have a signed copy of the first edition at home. That's hardly surprising though because he was my mother's first cousin and indeed I am named after him.' This should put me in good standing with Miranda, I speculated, and indeed to my great delight, these thoughts were instantly confirmed when Miranda said with a warm smile: 'How very interesting, Mr. Dashwood.

And do you possess his talent for languages?' I turned to her and beamed: 'Not exactly, I can get by well enough in French and German, but then Henry Layard was hardly a typical Briton. He came from Spanish stock on his mother's side and he was educated in France and Italy.' 'In that case the gentleman can hardly be counted as British,' commented Charles, but Professor Pachnos voiced his disagreement and said: 'Oh, I don't know about that. After all, if a man was born in a stable that does not make him a horse!' Then he said to me: 'What is more important though is that no-one would deny that Henry Layard was an exceptional man and you may be proud to have him as a relative. Did you know that after Henry retired, Disraeli appointed him to be the British Ambassador to Turkey?' We spent a few more minutes discussing the merits of my distinguished relative and then, sensing that he was way behind me in the struggle to gain Miranda Franklin's interest, Charles gracefully withdrew from the contest and left the field open for me to see if I could make any further progress with her. He swung round to Professor Pachnos and said: 'Don't you agree that the white wine being served to us today is extraordinarily good, sir. But not from your country of birth, I would think, though I'm fond of the jolly old retsina.

The professor was a sportsman for he replied: 'So am I, my boy, but you won't find any in Oxford and you would probably have great difficulty finding a bottle of retsina except in the cellars of the largest London wine merchants. However, as you say, the wine being served this evening is very pleasant. Actually I happen to know from which country it originates and this information quite surprised me.'