“That was it, you see,” he said presently. “The mother didn’t return. Knowing that the kid had got to have papers, Eustace gave him a name to go on with and after that I suppose one thing led to another. I don’t remember him after that until he was adopted and going to a prep school. My father was scared of the East Coast and packed Mother and me off to Wales.”
Mr. Campion did not speak at once.
“They were exaggerated times,” he said at last. “Confusing too, especially to a child, but you’ve got no evidence of this little fantasy, you know. It’s not a very . . . well, a very good story, do you think? To tell, I mean.”
“I shall tell it if I feel like it.” Toberman’s truculence was unabashed. “One of the enormous advantages of not being a Kinnit is that I can be as ‘off-white’ as I like.
