II
What next was an appointment in an inexpensive restaurant in theneighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.
‘Well I never!’ said an elderly man, leaping up from his seat where hewas sitting waiting. ‘Carroty Tom, on my life. Shouldn’t have known you.’
‘Possibly not,’ said Tommy. ‘Not much carrots left about me. It’s grey-haired Tom.’
‘Ah well, we’re all that. How’s your health?’
‘Much the same as I always was. Cracking. You know. Decomposing¹ bydegrees.’
‘How long is it since I’ve seen you? Two years? Eight years? Elevenyears?’
‘Now you’re going too far,’ said Tommy. ‘We met at the Maltese Cats din-ner last autumn, don’t you remember?’
‘Ah, so we did. Pity that broke up, you know. I always thought it would.
Nice premises², but the food was rotten. Well, what are you doing thesedays, old boy? Still in the espionage³-up-to-date do?’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘I’m nothing to do with espionage.’
‘Dear me. What a waste of your activities.’
‘And what about you, Mutton-Chop?’
‘Oh, I’m much too old to serve my country in that way.’
‘No espionage going on nowadays?’
‘Lots of it, I expect. But probably they put the bright boys on to it. Theones who come bursting out of universities needing a job badly. Whereare you now? I sent you a Christmas card this year. Well, I didn’t actuallypost it till January but anyway it came back to me with “Not known at thisaddress”.’
‘No. We’ve gone to the country to live now. Down near the sea. Hol-lowquay.’
‘Hollowquay. Hollowquay? I seem to remember something. Somethingin your line going on there once, wasn’t there?’
‘Not in my time,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve only just got to hear of it since goingto live there. Legends of the past. At least sixty years ago.’
‘Something to do with a submarine, wasn’t it? Plans of a submarine soldto someone or other. I forget who we were selling to at that time. Mighthave been the Japanese, might have been the Russians–oh, and lots of oth-ers. People always seemed to meet enemy agents in Regent’s Park orsomewhere like that. You know, they’d meet someone like a third Secret-ary from an

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