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from time to time despite the fact that no one was using it. It was difficult to negotiate not only because it was steep and badly lit, but because the distance between the treads was so high. Jemima had stumbled at the top of the last flight and had only broken her fall by clutching the thin wooden rail.
    The staircase ended in an arch. It was very cold in the stone interior  and slightly dank. The presence of a bathroom to their left and a lavatory to their right was also unaesthetic. A further staircase leading downwards had a cardboard notice reading: to the washing machine, do not use after 11 p.m. c.l. mossbanker . Someone had scrawled: 'To hell with that' beneath it. Someone else had added: 'And high water.' A further hand still had added: 'I'm pissed off with late night Lady Macbeths trying to wash it off after getting it off.' Jemima had a feeling the dialogue was only just beginning.
    It was difficult to believe, in view of all this, that the arch in front of her eyes formed part of a facade rated by some as the finest thing Hawksmoor ever did, outstripping the glory of neighbouring St John's.
    The next excitement was the appearance of a man they assumed to be Professor Mossbanker, from the fact that he emerged from the ground-floor rooms beneath the arch, which bore his name in gold letters.
    The professor was blinking and rubbing his eyes. Then he replaced the large thick spectacles, which with their heavy black rims made him appear almost the caricature of the absent-minded academic. Looking at Jemima with some surprise and at Cherry in her ‘I -shirt with disbelief, he asked abruptly what time it was.
    Jemima told him.
    'How odd!' he exclaimed. 'People generally fall down this staircase at night. That and the infernal washing machine leave one no peace. What is the compulsion, I wonder, which makes modern youth want to wash so noisily? And at night.' On which note he turned on his heel and retired back into his rooms. The heavy door shut.
    'I think he's done that sporting thing.' Cherry sounded rather uncertain.
    'Sporting thing! I don't call that very sporting. He could at least have given us a glass of dry sherry—'
    'No, Saffron just told us. When you slam your door it's called sporting your oak or something. Look, it's got no handle. You can't open it from outside. There's an inner door as well. Saffron had the same set-up.'
    'Like The Light of the World,' commented Jemima, who was an admirer of the Pre-Raphaelites and intended to visit Holman Hunt's celebrated picture in Keble College chapel after lunch, if she could hobble there. At the same time, agreeable memories of other sported oaks in her Cambridge days, doors in men's colleges shut not so much in her face as behind her back on entrance, rather agreeable memories, came back to her.
    The sudden arrival of a tiny girl dressed as some kind of clown in a white ruffled pierrot top and very baggy white trousers worn over high-heeled black shoes, distracted them both. The clown figure rolled her huge dark eyes, delineated in black, panda fashion, in Jemima's direction and sucked her finger. Her very short very black hair was topped by a conical hat with a pompom. It was not clear whether this childishness was genuine and thus mildly unfortunate, or assumed and thus extremely irritating.
    'Jemima, forgive, forgive,' whispered the clown. 'You've no idea of the perils I encountered on my journey. Oh, if only I had been with you! I know I would have felt so safe .'
    As Tiggie Jones carried on in this vein, rolling her huge eyes the while, Jemima wondered how it was that this diminutive creature, apparently lacking in all intelligence, always managed to put her so neatly at a disadvantage. I mean, how did you cope with the annoyance of being called safe by someone you believed to be a mere ten years younger than yourself if that?
    'And didn't you just adore him? Isn't he foxy? Tiggie was murmuring. 'Saffer. What a naughty boy. Still we can't all be good all