Then after a pause he resumed:  “I think you said you were going to Swansea?  Might I ask if you are bound on the same errand as I am?  I mean, are you one of Boyd Dawkins’s party to examine the new cave on the Gower coast?”

D.V.W.:  “Oh no—­I—­I am going inland from Swansea to—­to have a bicycling tour.  I’m going to a place on the river—­I don’t know how to pronounce it—­at least I’ve forgotten.  The river’s name is spelt Llwchwr.”

Blackbeard:  “You should change your mind and turn south—­come and see these extraordinary caves.  Are you interested in palaeontology?” (David hesitates) “What careless people call ‘prehistoric animals’ or ‘prehistoric man.’  They have been ridiculously misled by comic artists in Punch who imagine a few thousand years of Prehistory would take us back to the Cretaceous period; really four or five million years before Man came into existence, when this country and most other lands swarmed with preposterous reptiles that had become extinct long before the age of mammals.  However, I don’t suppose this interests you.  I only spoke because I thought you might be one of Boyd Dawkins’s pupils ... or one of mine.”

David:  “On the contrary, I am very, very much interested in the subject, but I am afraid it has lain rather outside my line of studies so far—­p’raps I will turn south when I have seen something of the part of Glamorgan I am going to.  I’m really Welsh in origin, but I know Wales imperfectly because I left it when I was quite young” ("This’ll be good practice,” Vivie’s brain voice was saying to herself) ...  “I’ve returned recently from South Africa.”

Blackbeard:  “What were you doing there?”

David:  “I—­I—­was in the army ... at least in a police force ...  I got wounded, had to go into hospital—­necrosis of the jaw ...  I came home when I got well...”

Blackbeard:  "Necrosis of the jaw! That was a bad thing.  But you seem to have got over it very well.  I can’t see any scar from where I am...”

David:  “Oh no.  It was only a slight touch and I dare say I exaggerate ...  I’ve left the Army however and now I’m reading Law...”

Blackbeard thinks at this point that he has gone far enough in cross-examination and returns to his periodicals and pamphlets.  But there’s something he likes—­a wistfulness—­in the young man’s face, and he can’t quite detach his mind to the presence of palaeolithic man in South Wales.  At Swindon they both get out—­there was still lingering the practice of taking lunch there—­have a hasty lunch together and more talk, and share a bottle of claret.