'I don't see anything nice about that,' said Larry.

'What does the old hag want?' Leslie inquired.

'Leslie, dear, you mustn't call her an old hag. She was very kind to you, remember.'

Leslie grunted derisively 'What's she want anyway?'

'Well, she says Adrian's doing a tour of the Continent and could he come to Corfu and stay with us for a bit.'

'Oh good,' said Leslie, 'it'll be nice to have Adrian to stay.'

'Yes, he's a nice boy,' admitted Larry magnanimously.

'Isn't he!' said Mother enthusiastically. 'Such nice manners.'

'Well, I'm not pleased he's coming,' contributed Margo. 'He's one of the most boring people I know. He makes me yawn just to look at him. Can't you say we're full up, Mother?'

'But I thought you liked Adrian,' said Mother, surprised. 'He certainly liked you, if I remember.'

'That's just the point. I don't want him drooling all over the place like a sex-starved spaniel.'

Mother straightened her spectacles and looked at Margo.

'Margo, dear, I don't think you ought to talk about Adrian like that, I don't know where you get these expressions. I'm sure you're exaggerating. I never saw him look like a... like a... well... like what you said. He seemed perfectly well behaved to me.'

'Of course he was,' said Leslie belligerently. 'It's just Margo; she thinks every man is after her.'

'I don't,' said Margo indignantly. 'I just don't like him. He's squishy. Every time you looked around, there he was, dribbling.'

'Adrian never dribbled in his life.'

'He did. Nothing but dribble, dribble, drool.'

'I never saw him dribbling,' said Mother, 'and anyway I can't say he mustn't stay just because he dribbles, Margo. Do be reasonable.'

'He's Les' friend. Let him dribble over Les.'

'He doesn't dribble. He's never dribbled.'

'Well,' said Mother, with the air of one solving a problem. 'There'll be plenty for him to do so I dare say he won't have time to dribble.'

A fortnight later a starving, exhausted Adrian arrived, having cycled with practically no money all the way from Calais on a bicycle, which had given up the unequal struggle and fallen to bits at Brindisi. For the first few days we saw little of him since Mother insisted he went to bed early, got up late, and had another helping of everything. When he did put in an appearance I watched him narrowly for signs of dribbling, for of all the curious friends we had had staying with us, we had never had one that dribbled before and I was anxious to witness this phenomenon. But apart from a tendency to go scarlet every time Margo entered the room and to sit looking at her with his mouth slightly open (when honesty compelled me to admit he did look rather like a spaniel), he betrayed no other signs of eccentricity. He had extravagantly curly hair, large, very gentle hazel eyes, and his hormones had just allowed him to achieve a hairline moustache of which he was extremely proud. He had bought, as a gift for Margo, a record of a song which he obviously considered to be the equivalent of Shakespearian sonnets set to music. It was called 'At Smokey Joe's' and we all grew to hate it intensely, for Adrian's day was not complete unless he had played this cacophonous ditty at least twenty times.

'Dear God,' Larry groaned at breakfast one morning as he heard the hiss of the record, 'not again, not at this hour.'

'At Smokey Joe's in Havana,' the gramophone proclaimed loudly in a nasal tenor voice, 'I lingered quenching my thirst...'

'I can't bear it. Why can't he play something else?' Margo wailed.

'Now, now, dear. He likes it,' said Mother placatingly.

'Yes, and he bought it for you,' said Leslie. 'It's your bloody present. Why don't you tell him to stop?'

'No, you can't do that, dear,' said Mother. 'After all, he is a guest.'

'What's that got to do with it?' snapped Larry. 'Just because he's tone deaf, why should we all have to suffer? It's Margo's record. It's her responsibility.'

'But it seems so impolite,' said Mother worriedly. 'After all, he brought it as a present; he thinks we like it.'

'I know he does. I find it hard to credit such depths of ignorance,' said Larry. 'D'you know he took off Beethoven's Fifth yesterday halfway through to put on that emasculated yowling! I tell you he's about as cultured as Attila the Hun.'

'Sshh, he'll hear you, Larry dear,' said Mother.

'What, with that row going on? He'd need an ear trumpet.'

Adrian, oblivious to the family's restiveness, now joined the recorded voice to make a duet. As he had a nasal tenor voice remarkably similar to the vocalist's the result was pretty horrible.

'I saw a damsel there... That was really where... I saw her first... Oh, Mama Inez... Oh, Mama Inez... Oh, Mama Inez... Mama Inez...' warbled Adrian and the gramophone more or less in unison.

'God in heaven!' Larry exploded. 'That's really too much! Margo, you've got to speak to him.'

'Well, do it politely, dear,' said Mother. 'We don't want to hurt his feelings.'

'I feel just like hurting his feelings,' said Larry.

'I know,' said Margo, 'I'll tell him Mother's got a headache.'

'That will only give us a temporary respite,' pointed out Larry.

'You tell him Mother's got a headache and I'll hide the needle,' suggested Leslie triumphantly. 'How about that?'

'Oh, that's a brainwave,' Mother exclaimed, delighted that the problem had been solved without hurting Adrian's feelings.

Adrian was somewhat mystified by the disappearance of the needles and the fact that everyone assured him they could not be obtained in Corfu. However, he had a retentive memory, if no ability to carry a tune, so he hummed 'At Smokey Joe's' all day long, sounding like a hive of distraught tenor bees.

As the days passed, his adoration for Margo showed no signs of abating; if anything, it grew worse, and Margo's irritation waxed with it. I began to feel very sorry for Adrian, for it seemed that nothing he could do was right. Because Margo said she thought his moustache made him look like an inferior gentlemen's hairdresser, he shaved it off, only to have her proclaim that moustaches were a sign of virility. Furthermore, she was heard to say in no uncertain terms that she much preferred the local peasant boys to any English import.

'They're so handsome and so sweet,' she said to Adrian's obvious chagrin. 'They all sing so well. They have such nice manners. They play the guitar. Give me one of them instead of an Englishman any day. They have a sort of ordure about them.'

'Don't you mean aura?' asked Larry.

'Anyway,' Margo continued, ignoring this, 'they're what I call men, not namby-pamby dribbling wash-outs.'

'Margo, dear,' said Mother, glancing nervously at the wounded Adrian. 'I don't think that's very kind.'

'I'm not trying to be kind,' said Margo, 'and most of cruelty is kindness if it's done in the right way.'

Leaving us with this baffling piece of philosophy, she went off to see her latest conquest, a richly tanned fisherman with a luxuriant moustache. Adrian was so obviously mortified that the family felt it must try and alleviate his mood of despair.

'Don't take any notice of Margo, Adrian dear,' said Mother soothingly. 'She doesn't mean what she says. She's very headstrong, you know. Have another peach.'

'Pig-headed,' said Leslie. 'And I ought to know.'

'I don't see how I can be more like the peasant boys,' mused Adrian, puzzled. 'I suppose I could take up the guitar.'

'No, no, don't do that,' said Larry hastily, 'that's quite unnecessary. Why not try something simple? Try chewing garlic.'

'Garlic?' asked Adrian, surprised. 'Does Margo like garlic?'

'Sure to,' said Larry, 'you heard what she said about those peasant lads' auras. Well, what's the first bit of their aura that hits you when you go near them? Garlic!'

Adrian was much struck by the logic of this and chewed a vast quantity of garlic, only to be told by Margo, with a handkerchief over her nose, that he smelled like the local bus on market day.

Adrian seemed to me to be a very nice person; he was gentle and kind and always willing to do anything that anyone asked of him. I felt it my duty to do something for him, but short of locking Margo in his bedroom a thought which I dismissed as impractical and liable to be frowned on by Mother I could think of nothing very sensible. I decided to discuss the matter with Mr Kralefsky in case he could suggest anything. When we were having our coffee break I told him about Adrian's unsuccessful pursuit of Margo, a welcome respite for us both from the insoluble mysteries of the square on the hypotenuse.

'Aha!' he said. 'The paths of love never run smooth. One is tempted to wonder, indeed, if life would not be a trifle dull if the road to one's goal were always smooth.'

I was not particularly interested in my tutor's philosophical flights but I waited politely. Mr Kralefsky picked up a biscuit delicately in his beautifully manicured hands, held it briefly over his coffee cup and then christened it in the brown liquid before popping it into his mouth. He chewed methodically, his eyes closed.

'It seems to me,' he said at last, 'that this young Lochinvar is trying too hard.'

I said that Adrian was English but, in any case, how could one try too hard; if one didn't try hard one didn't achieve success.

'Ah,' said Mr Kralefsky archly, 'but in matters of the heart things are different. A little bit of indifference sometimes works wonders.'

He put his fingertips together and gazed raptly at the ceiling. I could tell that we were about to embark on one of his flights of fancy with his favourite mythological character, 'a lady'.

'I remember once I became greatly enamoured of a certain lady,' said Kralefsky. 'I tell you this in confidence, of course.'

I nodded and helped myself to another biscuit. Kralefsky's stories were apt to be a bit lengthy.

'She was a lady of such beauty and accomplishments that every eligible man flocked round her, like... like... bees round a honey pot,' said Mr Kralefsky, pleased with this image. 'From the moment I saw her I fell deeply, irrevocably, inconsolably in love and felt that she in some measure returned my regard.'

He took a sip of coffee to moisten his throat, then he trellised his fingers together and leaned across the desk, his nostrils flaring, his great, soulful eyes intense.

'I pursued her relentlessly as a... as a... hound on the scent, but she was cold and indifferent to my advances. She even mocked the love that I offered her.'

He paused, his eyes full of tears, and blew his nose vigorously.

'I cannot describe to you the torture I went through, the burning agony of jealousy, the sleepless nights of pain. I lost twenty-four kilos; my friends began to worry about me, and, of course, they all tried to persuade me that the lady in question was not worthy of my suffering. All except one friend... a... an experienced man of the world, who had, I believe, had several affairs of the heart himself, one as far away as Baluchistan. He told me that I was trying too hard, that as long as I was casting my heart at the lady's feet she would be, like all females, bored by her conquest. But if I showed a little indifference, aha! my friend assured me, it would be a very different tale.'

Kralefsky beamed at me and nodded his head knowingly. He poured himself out more coffee.

And had he shown indifference, I asked.

'Indeed I did,' said Kralefsky. 'I didn't lose a minute. I embarked on a boat for China.'

I thought this was splendid; no woman, I felt, could claim to have you enslaved if you suddenly leaped on a boat for China. It was sufficiently remote to give the vainest woman pause for thought. And what happened, I inquired eagerly, when Mr Kralefsky returned from his travels?

'I found she had married,' said Mr Kralefsky, rather shamefacedly, for he realized that this was somewhat of an anticlimax.

'Some women are capricious and impatient, you know. But I managed to have a few moments of private conversation with her and she explained it all.'

I waited expectantly.

'She said,' Mr Kralefsky continued, 'that she had thought I had gone for good to become a Lama so she married. Yes, the little dear would have waited for me had she known, but, torn with grief, she married the first man who came along. If I had not misjudged the length of the voyage she would have been mine today.'

He blew his nose violently, a stricken look on his face. I digested this story, but it did not seem to give any very clear clues as to how to help Adrian. Should I perhaps lend him my boat, the Bootle-Bumtrinket, and suggest that he rowed over to Albania? Apart from the risk of losing my precious boat, I did not think that Adrian was strong enough to row that far. No, I agreed with Kralefsky that Adrian was being too eager but, knowing how capricious my sister was, I felt she would greet her admirer's disappearance from the island with delight rather than with despair. Adrian's real difficulty lay in the fact that he could never get Margo alone. I decided that I would have to take Adrian in hand if he was going to achieve anything like success.

The first thing was for him to stop following Margo around like a lamb following a sheep and to feign indifference, so I inveigled him into accompanying me when I went out to explore the surrounding countryside. This was easy enough to do. Margo, in self-defence, had taken to rising at dawn and disappearing from the villa before Adrian put in an appearance so he was left pretty much to himself. Mother had tried to interest him in cooking but after he had left the icebox open and melted half our perishable foodstuffs, set fire to a frying pan full of fat, turned a perfectly good joint of lamb into something closely resembling biltong, and dropped half a dozen eggs on to the kitchen floor, she was only too glad to back up my suggestion that Adrian should accompany me.

I found Adrian an admirable companion, considering that he had been brought up in a city. He never complained, he would patiently obey my terse instructions to 'Hold that!' or 'Don't move it'll bite you!' to the letter, and seemed genuinely interested in the creatures we pursued.

As Mr Kralefsky had predicted, Margo became intrigued by Adrian's sudden absence. Although she did not care for his attentions she felt perversely piqued when she was not receiving them. She wanted to know what Adrian and I did all day long. I replied rather austerely that Adrian was helping me in my zoological investigations. I said that moreover he was shaping up very well and if this went on I would have no hesitation in proclaiming him a very competent naturalist by the end of the summer.

'I don't know how you can go around with anyone so wet,' she said. 'I find him an incredible bore.'

I said that was probably just as well as Adrian had confessed to me that he was finding Margo a bit boring too.

'What?' said Margo, outraged. 'How dare he say that, how dare he!'

Well, I pointed out philosophically, she had only herself to blame. After all, who would not find someone boring if they carried on like she did, never going swimming with him, never going walking with him, always being rude.

'I'm not rude,' said Margo angrily. 'I just speak the truth. And if he wants a walk I'll give him one. Boring indeed!'

I was so pleased with the success of my scheme that I overlooked the fact that Margo, like the rest of my family, could be a powerful antagonist when aroused. That evening she was so unexpectedly polite and charming to Adrian that everyone, with the victim's exception, was amazed and alarmed. Skilfully, Margo steered the conversation round to walks and then said that, as Adrian's time in the island was growing short, it was essential that he saw more of it. What better method than walking? Yes, stammered Adrian, that was really the best way of seeing a country.

'I intend to go for a walk the day after tomorrow,' said Margo airily, 'a lovely walk. It's a pity you're so busy with Gerry, otherwise you could have come with me.'

'Oh, don't let that worry you. Gerry can fend for himself,' said Adrian, with what I privately considered to be callous and impolite indifference. 'I'd love to come!'

'Oh good,' fluted Margo. 'I'm sure you'll enjoy it; it's one of the nicest strolls around here.'

'Where?' inquired Leslie.

'Liapades,' said Margo airily, 'I haven't been there for ages.'

'Liapades?' echoed Leslie. 'A stroll? It's right the other side of the island. It'll take you hours.'

'Well, I thought we'd take a picnic and make a day of it,' said Margo, adding archly, 'that is, if Adrian doesn't mind.'

It was obvious that Adrian would not mind if Margo had suggested swimming underwater to Italy and back in full armour. I said I thought I would accompany them, as it was an interesting walk from a zoological point of view. Margo shot me a baleful look.

'Well, if you come you must behave yourself,' she said enigmatically.

Adrian was, needless to say, full of the walk and Margo's kindness in asking him. I was not so sure. I pointed out that Liapades was a long way and that it was very hot, but Adrian said he did not mind a bit. Privately, I wondered, since he was rather frail, whether he would last the pace but I could not say this without insulting him. At five o'clock on the appointed day we assembled on the veranda. Adrian was wearing an enormous pair of hob-nailed boots he had acquired from somewhere, long trousers and a thick flannel shirt. To my astonishment, when I ventured to suggest that this ensemble was not suitable for a walk across the island in a temperature of over a hundred in the shade, Margo disagreed. Adrian was wearing perfect walking kit, chosen by herself, she said. The fact that she was clad in a diaphanous bathing suit and sandals and I was in shorts and an open-necked shirt did not deter her. She was armed with a massive pack on her back, which I imagined contained our food and drink, and a stout stick. I was carrying my collecting bag and butterfly net.

Thus equipped, we set out, Margo setting an unreasonably fast pace, I thought. Within a short space of time Adrian was sweating profusely and his face turned pink. Margo, in spite of my protests, stuck to open country and shunned the shade-giving olive groves. In the end I kept pace with them but walked in the shade of the trees a few hundred yards away. Adrian, afraid of being accused of being soft, followed doggedly and moistly at Margo's heels. After four hours, he was limping badly and dragging his feet; his grey shirt was black with sweat and his face was an alarming shade of magenta.