Читать книгу Some Do Not... онлайн

102 страница из 107

Mr Waterhouse at the moment was slapping Mr Sandbach on the back, tossing the hair out of his eyes and laughing like an hysterical schoolgirl. He looked suddenly tired. A police constable, his buttons shining, appeared, drinking from a pewter-pot outside the glazed door. The two city men ran across the angle from the dressing-room to the same door, buttoning their clothes. The Minister said loudly:

'Make it guineas!'

It seemed to Macmaster painfully wrong that Tietjens should call anyone so genial and unaffected an unspeakable swine. It was unjust. He went on with his explanation to the General.

The Government had wanted a set of figures based on a calculation called B7. Tietjens, who had been working on one called H19--for his own instruction--had persuaded himself that H19 was the lowest figure that was actuarially sound.

The General said pleasantly: 'All this is Greek to me.'

'Oh no, it needn't be,' Macmaster heard himself say. 'It amounts to this. Chrissie was asked by the Government--by Sir Reginald Ingleby--to work out what 3 x 3 comes to: it was that sort of thing in principle. He said that the only figure that would not ruin the country was nine times nine...'