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found.' Sir Edgar glanced with amusement at Pforzheim.
    'I do not care for premature publication, you know, Sir Edgar,' the visitor said, and his manner, for so charming a man, was quite stiff.
    'Oh, quite right, my dear chap,' said Sir Edgar. 'Well, we'll know when we're intended to, no doubt. I liked your article on the functions of the Carolingian Chancellery. We've got a young chap from Leeds working on the same thing at the moment. He'll be here this evening. I think he's got a bone to pick with you. Something to do with your interpretation of the seals. So we'll give you a bit of a run for your money. By the way, don't hesitate to carry on beyond the usual hour if you want to. We normally have a short Association business meeting after the discussion, but I wouldn't be sorry to postpone it. I get very easily tired these days, you know. So use all the time you want.'
    Once again Professor Pforzheim ignored his chairman's references to procedure. 'Sir Edgar,' he said, in that abrupt, overloud tone that people so often use when they have made up their mind to speak, 'will there be Press here this evening?'
    'Oh! I expect so. The Times and the Guardian usually send chaps along. Stokesay was a bit of a national figure, you know. Are you going to say anything about him this evening? It's usual, of course. But you don't have to.'
    'But of course,' said Professor Pforzheim, 'I shall pay tribute to his great historical work. I do not think it will be exact if I make mention of his political work - as a foreigner.'
    'Oh, no, my dear fellow. Certainly not. Not "exact" at all.' Sir Edgar was delighted that his question had so quickly elicited what he wished to know. He always faced the Stokesay Lecture more easily if he knew that no reference would be made to the founder's unfortunate last years. 'Quite candidly, the old chap made an infernal nuisance of himself with all that...' His voice tailed away as he realized that 'pro-German nonsense' would not be exactly polite to his guest.
    'By the way,' said Professor Pforzheim, 'are the Melpham objects on exhibition still?'
    'I don't know,' said Sir Edgar. 'I haven't looked at 'em for years. I don't care for these nonesuches, and Eorpwald's tomb is one of them. Anyway, I never look at anything that isn't beautiful these days unless duty compels me, and I haven't touched the seventh century for years. I expect you'll find them in the gallery, though you never know now; they change things about so much in all these museums. All this display fidde-faddle. Educating the public and so on. We're back to the Prince Consort. Anyway, Cuspatt'll produce the things for you, if you want to see them. What's the interest in Melpham, anyhow? Stokesay said all there was to say about it. How does it go? "We may search all the annals of the English conversion until the end of time before we find a spirit so strange, a character so enigmatic as Eorpwald, the Janus-headed missionary of East Folk. This man, so learned, so credulous..." I forget how it goes on. I had a wonderful memory once. Could recite you hundreds of the old man's purple passages. But you'll find it all in his Conversion of England; the serious stuff's in the E.H.J, for '13, and he wrote it up again in '22.'
    'Yes,' said Professor Pforzheim, as though in answer to a too-often-repeated story.
    'Ah, Middleton!' said Sir Edgar with pleasure. He liked Gerald Middleton at all times and especially when he promised relief from a Hun visitor. 'You know Middleton, Pforzheim, don't you?'
    'We have not met since before the war,' said Professor Pforzheim. He was careful not to bow but to shake hands.
    'You were not at Florence in 1950, Professor Middleton, nor again at Vienna last year?'
    'No,' said Gerald Middleton. 'I'm too old really for international congresses, and certainly too lazy.' His voice, though drawling, was warm and deep.
    'Oh, you are quite right, I am sure,' said Professor Pforzheim, and he smiled sophisticatedly to show his