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wouldn’t prefer to be warned. I like to get myself in order before a change.”
    This was not quite the style of thing Graecen liked. He did not want pity or commiseration, but he did feel.… “Well,” he said, “I’ve locked up the flat, sent Garbett on a holiday, and made my will. I’m as free as the wind. And look.” He flourished the travel-company’s ticket before Hogarth, who was slowly turning the book of poems over and over, as if it were some puzzling potsherd whose function he could not decide.
    â€œCefalû,” said Graecen, enunciating clearly but softly the word which seemed to have come out of a W. J. Turner poem.
    â€œCefalû,” repeated Hogarth without any emphasis one way or the other. His interest had now moved on from the book to the ticket. The name of the ship was the Europa , “Baird is going to Crete too,” he said. “A patient of mine. You’ll be travelling together, and will see.…”
    â€œSilenus,” said Graecen with the air of a conjurer bringing off a trick. “I shall tell him everything.”
    â€œYou won’t need to,” said Hogarth sardonically. “He’ll probably tell you, that old Phanariot intriguer. What is all this about the labyrinth? I saw it in the paper.”
    Graecen fished a letter out of his pocket holding up an excited hand to prevent Hogarth saying any more until he should deliver himself of his news, “A letter from Silenus,” he said. “Look.”
    Hogarth saw the familiar vermilion and the little drawing on the letterhead, of a village perched upon the side of a high stone cone. “Read it,” he said. He knew that Graecen loved to read aloud, having a conceit of his voice. “All right, I will.”
    Graecen sat back and put on his story-book voice—the voice reserved for reading of his own work on the radio.
    â€œThe sun”, he read, “comes up every day like the naked flash of a cannon. I am sitting in the garden writing on a fallen block of marble. The roses are doing well and so, as you have heard, is the archaeology. Further to my last, the labyrinth has produced a stone inscription—pre-Minoan? At any rate anothen script I cannot tackle, part hieroglyph. The Museum say they will send for you if I wish? My dear fellow, of course I wish. A summer in Cefalû would do you good. I need company. Bring anyone you wish. But please follow these instructions implicitly: Do not in any way, in print or by statements to the Press, commit yourself to a belief in, or knowledge of, the New Era (we hope) I’ve stumbled on. Got that?” Graecen broke off in confusion and found Hogarth’s steady eye upon him. He wrinkled his brows. “Now I wonder why ,” he said plaintively.
    Hogarth admitted a wrinkle to his left cheek and shook out the burnt top of his dottle. “Why not guess?” he said. Graecen looked at him innocently.
    â€œDicky,” said Hogarth, “you know what our dear Silenus is. It’s just possible that the New Era is—”
    â€œFaked?” said Graecen in alarm.
    â€œWell, it’s a proposition,” said Hogarth easily. “It surely wouldn’t be hard to do.”
    â€œBut the lovely statue,” said Graecen.
    â€œI should have a good look at it,” his friend advised.
    Graecen looked confused and put the letter back in his pocket. He thought hard.
    â€œHow do you tell the age of a statue anyway?” said Hogarth, “apart from guesswork or typology?”
    Graecen was too busy thinking to answer. He could easily get Firbank and his beastly chemicals to come along and test the stone; “but I don’t want to start any suspicion about Axelos,” he said.
    â€œChemicals?” said Hogarth. “Take some along with you when you go.”
    â€œI will,” said Graecen fervently. “I will.”
    He ate a rejected crust off his plate and seemed