Bursar, and all the chemical and biochemical people for a start. Bill the Blizzard will probably do something pretty devastating, but he's bound to side with us if it comes to a vote. Besides: I haven't yet told you. Dick's going to be there. He came up in time for dinner last night."
Studdock's mind darted hither and thither in search of some safe way to conceal the fact that he did not know who Dick was. In the nick of time he remembered a very obscure colleague whose Christian name was Richard.
"Telford?" said Studdock in a puzzled voice. He knew very well that Telford could not be the Dick that Curry meant.
"Good Lord! Telford!" said Curry with a laugh. "No. I mean Lord Feverstone-Dick Devine as he used to be."
"I was a little baffled by the idea of Telford," said Studdock, joining in the laugh. "I'm glad Feverstone is coming. I've never met him you know."
"Oh, but you must," said Curry. "Look here, come and dine in my rooms to-night. I've asked him."
"I should like to very much," said Studdock quite truly. And then, after a pause, "By the way, I suppose Feverstone's own position is quite secure?"
"How do you mean?" asked Curry.
"Well, there was some talk, if you remember, as to whether someone who was away quite so much could go on holding a Fellowship."
"Oh, you mean Glossop and all that ramp. Nothing will come of that. Didn't you think it absolute blah?"
"As between ourselves, yes. But I confess if I were put up to explain in public exactly why a man who is nearly always in London should go on being a Fellow of Bracton, I shouldn't find it altogether easy. The real reasons are the sort that Watson would call imponderables."
"I don't agree. Isn't it important to have influential connections with the outer world? It's not in the least impossible that Dick will be in the next Cabinet. Even already Dick in London has been a damn sight more use to the College than Glossop and half a dozen others of that sort have been by sitting here all their lives."
"Yes. Of course that's the real point. It would be a little difficult to put in that form at a College meeting, though!"
"There's one thing," said Curry in a slightly less intimate tone, "that perhaps you ought to know about Dick."
"What's that?"
"He got you your Fellowship."
Mark was silent. He did not like things which reminded him that he had once been not only outside the progressive element but even outside the College. He did not always like Curry either. His pleasure in being with him was not that sort of pleasure.
"Yes," said Curry. "Denniston was your chief rival. Between ourselves, a good many people liked his papers better than yours. It was Dick who insisted all through that you were the sort of man we really wanted. And I must say he turned out to be right."
"Very kind of you," said Studdock with a little mock bow. He was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. It was an old rule at Bracton that one never mentioned in the presence of a man the circumstances of his own election, and Studdock had not realised till now that this also was one of the traditions the Progressive Element was prepared to scrap.
"I'm glad you're going to meet Dick," said Curry. "We haven't time now, but there's one thing about him I wanted to discuss with you."
Studdock looked enquiringly at him. "James and I and one or two others," said Curry in a somewhat lower voice, "have been thinking he ought to be the new warden. But here we are."
"It's not yet twelve," said Studdock. "What about popping into the Bristol for a drink?"
Into the Bristol they accordingly went. It would not have been easy to preserve the atmosphere in which the Progressive Element operated without a good many of these little courtesies. This weighed harder on Studdock than on Curry, who was unmarried and had a sub-warden's stipend.
The only time I was a guest at Bracton I persuaded my host to let me into the Wood and leave me there alone for an hour.
Very few people were allowed into Bragdon Wood. If you came in from the street and went through the College to reach it, the sense of gradual penetration into a holy of holies was very strong. First you went through the Newton quadrangle, which is dry and gravelly. Next you must enter a cool,