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     to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in Broadstairs. As president for the year he has the casting vote.’
    Samuel was stricken, victory snatched from him. Having heard a little of the interesting scene between Gwendolen and Sir Thomas
     after the Prince of Wales’s banquet, he naturally assumed her allegiance to him would be broken. Now, he was aghast. The Prince
     would be sure to support Throgmorton; he had the right background – well, half right. He was a banker and an important influence
     in Europe. What had he, Samuel Pipkin, inheritor of a fortunemade in corsetry, to set against this? True, there was his own invention of the Pipkin’s Patent Health Corset, but they never
     awarded honours for that sort of thing. If they had a woman as prime minister now . . . Never, never should Thomas Throgmorton
     usurp his place as chairman on 23rd April 1900. Over his dead body.
    Whose, he did not stop to think. But at Broadstairs, Throgmorton should not escape him.
    Now that the matter was as good as settled, Sir Thomas relaxed. The Prince of Wales would be sure to support him, with Beddington
     on his side. Her Majesty was well known to be partial to Beddington’s company, incredible as it seemed. He had paid court
     to her in his young days. Hard to imagine that Beddington ever had any younger days, looking at his peacefully slumbering,
     reddened face, bearing traces of years of good and ill. Sir Thomas complacently considered his own middle-aged locks, plentifully
     adorned with Macassar oil. He was only fifty-three after all, and a catch as far as Angelina was concerned. He was looking
     forward increasingly to Broadstairs.
    Auguste Didier fidgeted impatiently in the anteroom adjoining the private room, awaiting his summons. When he had arrived,
     he had already had a few doubts about the wisdom of this enterprise. Now, thanks to Emma Pryde, he had grave misgivings. Lacking
     the strict upbringing of Auguste’s Provencal father, Emma had no compunction about listening to the conversations of others
     – particularly when they might affect herself. In this case, she was fond enough of Auguste still to take at times an almost
     maternal interest in his affairs, particularly his romantic ones, which irritated him greatly.
    ‘It’s only another of these daft societies,’ she had explained to Auguste. ‘They meet here once a month just to have a good
     old shout at each other. Old Boney soundsbetter on his night off than that lot yelling at each other I can tell you.’ Old Boney was her pet parrot.
    ‘But if His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is president, Emma,’ Auguste had said, shocked, ‘surely it must be a highly
     honourable society.’
    ‘Old Albert Edward,’ remarked Emma, with scant respect for her next sovereign, perhaps born of past intimacy, ‘is a good sort.
     He agrees to these things, then he regrets them once they’re done and he has to get off his bum and do something. Generous,
     is Bertie,’ she said absently, perhaps remembering past favours. ‘If you want to hear what this lot’s like, you come and listen
     to this.’ She had taken him from her private dining room into the anteroom. Putting her fingers to her lips, she drew him
     over to a small serving hatch. ‘’Ere.’
    At first scandalised, then intrigued, Auguste found it impossible to resist the lure of the cut and thrust of battle from
     within. Thus, by the time his summons came, he was considerably more gloomy about interrupting his precious Fish Fortnight
     holiday than he had been earlier, even for His Royal Highness. He tried to encourage himself by thinking of the delightful
     fish menu he had selected, calculated to please everybody, and began to look forward to its getting the accolade it deserved.
    ‘Ah, Mr Didier.’ Sir Thomas rose, greeting him expansively, almost shaking hands with him before he realised that, chef to
     the Prince of Wales or not, Didier was merely a cook, and hurriedly directed