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identity of its sender. His concern with Anthony Johnson was simply to get some idea of the man’s movements. But on the following evening, the last Wednesday of the month, he was to learn simultaneously partial answers to all these questions.
    It was eight o’clock and dusk. Arthur had long finished his evening meal, washed the dishes, and was about to settle in front of his television. But he remembered leaving his bedroom window open. Auntie Gracie had always been most eloquent on the subject of night air and its evil effects. As he was pulling down the sash, taking care not to catch up the fragile border of the net curtain, he saw the light, shed on the court below, go out. Quickly he went to his front door, opened it and listened. But instead of leaving the house, Anthony Johnson was coming upstairs.
    Arthur heard quite clearly the sound of the phone dial being spun. A lot of digits, not just the seven for London. And presently a lot of coins inserted …
    Anthony Johnson’s voice: “I’m taking it that the coast is clear, he’s not listening on the extension and he won’t come up here and shoot me in the morning.” A pause. Then, “Of course I’m teasing you, my love. The whole business is sick.” Arthur listened intently. “I had your letter. Darling, I need footnotes. You must be the only married lady who’s ever quoted
The Pilgrim’s Progress
in a letter to her lover. It was
Grace Abounding?
Then I doneed footnotes.” A long, long pause. Anthony Johnson cursed, obviously because he had to put more money in.
    “Shall I transfer the charges? No, of course I won’t. Roger would see it on the bill and so on and so on.” Silence. Laughter. Another silence. Then: “Term starts a week today, but I’ll only be going to a few lectures that touch on my subject. I’m here most of the time, working and—well, thinking, I suppose. Go out in the evenings? Lovey, where would I go and who would I go with?”
    Arthur closed his door, doing this in the totally silent way he had cultivated by long practice.

5
————
    The air of West Kenbourne, never sweet, stank of rubbish. Sacks and bags and crates of rubbish made a wall along the pavement edge between the Waterlily and Kemal’s Kebab House. Factory refuse and kitchen waste, leaking from broken cardboard boxes, cluttered Oriel Mews, and in Trinity Road the household garbage simmered, reeking, in the sultry sunlight.
    “And we’ve only got one little dustbin,” Arthur said peevishly to Stanley Caspian.
    “Wouldn’t make any difference if we’d got ten, they’d be full up now. Can’t you put your muck in one of those black bags the council sent round?”
    Arthur changed his tack. “It’s the principle of the thing. If these men insist on striking, other arrangements should be made. I pay my rates, I’ve got a right to have my waste disposed of. I shall write to the local authority. They might take notice of a strongly worded letter from a ratepayer.”
    “Pigs might fly if they’d got wings and then we shouldn’t have any more pork.” Stanley roared with laughter. “Which reminds me, I’m starving. Put the kettle on, me old Arthur.” He opened a bag of peanuts and another of hamburger-flavoured potato crisps. “How’s the new chap settling in?”
    “Don’t ask me,” said Arthur. “You know I keep myself to myself.”
    He made Stanley’s coffee, asked for his envelope, and went back upstairs. The idea of discussing Anthony Johnson was distasteful to him, and this was partly because any conversation in the hall might easily be overheard in Room 2. Stanley Caspian, ofcourse, would be indifferent to that. Arthur wished he too could be indifferent, but there had crept upon him in the past few days a feeling that he must ingratiate himself with Anthony Johnson, not on any account offend him or win his displeasure. He now rather regretted his sharp words about the imprecise addressing of letters. Vague notions of having to