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Ginger Rogers? Ogden said: “I don’t have three paid seamen to do the bloody work for me. Maybe that’s why I don’t win races and stick my bloody neck out where it’s not wanted.”
    He put down his glass. “Thanks for the drink, Johnson. I’ll have to go. Since I do my own sailing, I’ve one or two things to look after.”
    He nodded briefly to Johnson, remembering at the last moment to include me, and strode off, slightly wide at the knees. Watching him go: “Where’s the girl?” enquired Hennessy.
    “Laying in stores at Helensburgh, and conning the nearest affluent young man into driving her here with them,” said Johnson, ordering Hennessy a drink. Ogden, it appeared, was subsidised by his sorrowing family to live up there on the Clyde, building and rebuilding his yacht with the help of the pittance which was all they dared allow him, and all the help he could scrounge.
    “Including a girl? How domestic!”
    Hennessy smiled back at me, but Rupert said: “Oh, there’s always been a girl. He’s the helpless type who attracts them. But he’s damned lucky this time. He’s got Victoria.”
    “A plum,” said Johnson, his bifocals stationary. “Rupert is a friend of the family.”
    “Don’t be an ass.” Rupert, predictably, was carmine again. “She did the season, and I saw her now and then after. It’s a bit of too much, actually, Cecil commandeering her. There’s a limit to what you should ask anyone to do; and Victoria never thinks of herself.”
    He stopped. I said: “Is she the only hand on Seawolf ?” It seemed very Bohemian for these Calvinist parts.
    “Oh, they’ll manage.” Rupert was confident. “She’s Bermudan, and pretty easy to run.”
    “Well, good luck to them,” Hennessy remarked. “I don’t expect her miseries will endure very long. On past form, the boat’ll begin coming to bits when the starting gun fires.”
    “Yes. But you heard what he said.” It was Johnson who chided. “They have plenty of string.”
     
    Dinner at the Royal Highland Cruising Club is a civilised meal, and Johnson and Rupert provided agreeable company. I found I was recognised after all; and at intervals between the soup and the coffee I signed a great many menus.
    The last menu was Johnson’s. I received it, surprised, and opened it ready for autograph. Above the smoked salmon was a quick ballpoint portrait of myself in the Galitzine suit, with the nose shortened just that fraction I have always promised myself. It was ravishing. A perfect likeness. I remarked on it.
    “Yours – if you like that sort of thing,” said Johnson. I thanked him warmly, and we both gazed after the drawing which, lifted by a passing acquaintance, had begun to travel from table to table. It reached Hennessy who, rising, called: “Nice bit of work, Johnson. Care to auction it for my committee on Oxfam?”
    There was a stir of interest, and I concealed my annoyance. It was my drawing. On the other hand, I must think of my public.
    It was auctioned for two hundred guineas, the closing bid being Hennessy’s. His hand, while I signed it for him, rested adhesively on my silk-covered shoulder and he smelled discretely like the Nice branch of Hermès. He invited me to visit the Symphonetta at our first shore-going checkpoint to see the drawing framed in his cabin. The thought of being framed in Mr Hennessy’s cabin lingered with me through the rest of my dinner.
    Johnson himself seemed quite unaffected by the incident, although he remarked, with some innocent pleasure, that it was the first time he had delineated a lady with her head in the smoked haddock and her bosoms in the cheese. I remembered that he could command two hundred guineas at a time for one thumbnail sketch, and that a finished painting, if as good as that, could be used for publicity for years instead of having my nose shortened. Over the liqueurs, when Rupert had excused himself to complete his work for next day, I said to Johnson: “Now, let’s talk