VTommy continued his walk and presently entered the post office, wherehe put through a call to Mr. Grant, and reported “the recent operation wassuccessful and our friend C is definitely involved.”
Then he wrote a letter and posted it. It was addressed to Mr. Albert Batt,The Duck and Dog, Glamorgan St., Kennington.
Then he bought himself a weekly paper which professed¹ to inform theEnglish world of what was really going to happen and strolled innocentlyback in the direction of Sans Souci.
Presently he was hailed by the hearty² voice of Commander Haydockleaning from his two-seater car and shouting, “Hallo, Meadowes, want alift?”
Tommy accepted a lift gratefully and got in.
“So you read that rag, do you?” demanded Haydock, glancing at the scar-let cover of the Inside Weekly News.
Mr. Meadowes displayed the slight confusion of all readers of the peri-odical in question when challenged.
“Awful rag,” he agreed. “But sometimes, you know, they really do seemto know what’s going on behind the scenes.”
“And sometimes they’re wrong.”
“Oh, quite so.”
“Truth of it is,” said Commander Haydock, steering³ rather erraticallyround a one-way island and narrowly missing collision with a large van,“when the beggars are right, one remembers it, and when they’re wrongyou forget it.”
“Do you think there’s any truth in this rumour⁴ about Stalin having ap-proached us?”
“Wishful thinking, my boy, wishful thinking,” said Commander Hay-dock. “The Russkys are as crooked⁵ as hell and always have been. Don’ttrust ’em, that’s what I say. Hear you’ve been under the weather?”
“Just a touch of hay fever. I get it about this time of year.”
“Yes, of course. Never suffered from it myself, but I had a pal⁶ who did.
Used to lay him out regularly every June. Feeling fit enough for a game ofgolf?”
Tommy said he’d like it very much.
“Right. What about tomorrow? Tell you what, I’ve got to go to a meetingabout this Parashot business, raising a

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