Portrait of a Judge by Henry Cecil

Author:Henry Cecil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

The Good Turn

It started at the Old Boys’ dinner.

‘Don’t tell me,’ said the prosperous-looking man. ‘I know. It’s Flintlock.’

‘It’s Summers, as a matter of fact.’

‘Of course. You haven’t changed really. I’d have known you anywhere. What about me? Have I changed?’

‘Well,’ said Summers, ‘I’ve seen your picture in the papers so often that it’s difficult to say. I couldn’t help recognising you. You have done well.’

‘You’ve followed my career with interest, have you, what!’

‘Well, it’s nice to see people one admired at school getting on afterwards.’

‘I don’t know what there was to admire about me at school. I never got my first eleven colours and you did. And you were always above me in form.’

‘No, that was Flintlock. I was always just below.’

‘Were you really now? I’d forgotten. And how have things been going?’

‘Oh – not too bad.’

That was about an accurate description of Summers’ position in the world. Not too bad. But not too good either. He managed, but that was all. Very different from that of the man he was talking to. Alan Crombie had become a really important person in the city. His photograph had indeed appeared in the newspapers fairly often. Sometimes in The Times at directors’ meetings of important companies. Sometimes in the cheaper newspapers when there were rumours of a takeover bid.

Summers had idolised Crombie at school. Not for any particular reason. It happens like that. Whatever Crombie said Summers agreed with. Crombie only had to say ‘Let’s –’ and, whatever it was, Summers would say ‘Yes’. This was useful to Crombie, for an immediate ‘Yes’ from one boy was a definite help towards obtaining general approval.

They never met after they left school until this particular Old Boys’ dinner. Summers had attended many such gatherings, often with difficulty finding the price of the ticket. Crombie had had no time for such meetings. But now they had asked him to be President, and that was different. It was not only that he was complimented by it, but it was in its way quite useful. When your old school, which had never taken the slightest notice of you since you left, asks you to become President of the Old Boys’ Association, you really have arrived.

‘Tell me, my dear chap,’ said Crombie, ‘what do you do?’

It was not just a polite question. His own success made him take a sentimental interest in less successful old boys, and there was something a little pathetic about Summers. Without being told, he could see that he either had a small job with too little salary and no prospects or a small business which just managed to keep on the right side of insolvency.

‘Nothing very thrilling,’ said Summers. ‘I’ve a small manufacturing business. Plastics, you know.’

‘Ah, plastics. There’s a lot to be done with them yet. We can wear them, build with them and eat them so far. You wait till we can split the atom in them. Public company?’

‘Oh – no – very private and very small. We’re not doing too badly, but it’s the tax business that gets me down.

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