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not store up trouble for me. Mama persuaded me to sue for peace by going down on my knees to ask forgiveness and making a peace offering of a bottle of schnapps, two bottles of White Horse and a bottle of Martell. We were now technically at peace and I was going to tell him about my plans for the post-graduate course. But I knew in advance what he would say. He would tell me that I already had more than enough education, that all the important people in the country today---ministers, businessmen, Members of Parliament, etc., did not have half my education. He would then tell me for the hundredth time to leave 'this foolish teaching', and look for a decent job in the government and buy myself a car. As it turned out I arrived in the capital, Bori, exactly one month after Chief Nanga's unexpected invitation. Although I had written a letter to say when I would be arriving and had followed it up with a telegram, I still had a lingering fear as I announced the address rather importantly and settled back in the taxi that morning. I was thinking that a man of Chief Nanga's easy charm and country-wide popularity must throw out that kind of invitation several times each day without giving it much thought. Wasn't I being unreasonable in trying to hold him down to it? Anyhow I had taken the precaution of writing to an old friend, a newly qualified lawyer struggling to set up in private practice. I would watch Nanga's reaction very closely and if necessary move out smartly again on the following day as though that had always been my intention. When we got to the Minister's residence my fear increased as his one-eyed stalwart stopped the car at the gate and began to look me over. 'Who you want?' he scowled. 'Chief Nanga.' 'He give you appointment?' 'No, but...' 'Make you park for outside. I go go haskam if he want see you. Wetin be your name?' Fortunately the Minister, who was apparently relaxing with his family in the lounge came to the door, and on seeing us rushed outside and threw his arm round me. Then his wife and three of his children trooped out and joined in the excited welcoming. 'Come right inside,' said the Minister. 'We have been waiting for you all morning. The house is yours.' I hung back to pay the taxi-driver. 'No, no, no!' cried my host. 'Go right inside. I will settle with the driver. He na my very good friend, no be so, driver?' 'Yes, sir, master,' said the driver, who had hitherto seemed a most unfriendly man to me. Now he broke into a broad smile showing smoke-and kola-stained teeth. For a mother of seven, the eldest of whom was sixteen or seventeen, Mrs Nanga was and still is very well kept. Her face, unlike her husband's had become blurred in my memory. But on seeing her now it all came back again. She was bigger now of course---almost matronly. Her face was one of the friendliest I had ever seen. She showed me to the Guest's Suite and practically ordered me to have a bath while she got some food ready. 'It won't take long,' she said, 'the soup is already made.' A small thing, but it struck me even as early as this: Mr Nanga always spoke English or pidgin; his children, whom I discovered went to expensive private schools run by European ladies spoke impeccable English, but Mrs Nanga stuck to our language---with the odd English word thrown in now and again. My host did not waste time. At about five o'clock that afternoon he told me to get ready and go with him to see the Hon. Simon Koko, Minister for Overseas Training. Earlier that day one of those unseasonal December rains which invariably brought on the cold harmattan had fallen. It had been quite heavy and windy and the streets were now littered with dry leaves, and sometimes half-blocked by broken-off tree branches; and one had to mind fallen telegraph and high-voltage electric wires. Chief Koko, a fat jovial man wearing an enormous home- knitted red-and-yellow sweater was about to have coffee. He asked if we would join him or have some alcohol. 'I no follow you