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“Then Adrian Sloane had better keep both his eyes wide open, because if Bob, Seb, and Arnold are working together as a tea across the table at Priscilla’s husband

“Bingham’s Fish Paste seems to have fallen out of the headlines lately,” said Gwyneth, turning to the chairman of the company

“And that’s no bad thing,” said Bob “Noe can get on with feeding the nation and not titillating the gossip columnists”

Gwyneth laughed “I have a confession to make,” she said “We’ve never had a jar of your fish paste in the house”

“And I ht if I lived in Bristol”

Gwyneth smiled

“What odds would you put on Giles holding on to his seat?” asked Bob

“Clinging on by his fingernails seems the likely outcoinal seat, but the opinion polls suggest that this ti to be too close to call So a lot will depend on who the local Conservatives select as their candidate”

“But Giles is a popular minister, much admired on both sides of the House Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“About a thousand votes in Griff Haskins’s opinion But his constituency agent never stops reainst you, there’s not a lot you can do about it”

“I suppose you have to coularly,” said Jean Buchanan

“Not that often actually,” said Griff “We agents have a tendency to re sure the voters still love theroom door opened, and all conversation stopped as he entered the room

“No, no, please sit down, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” declared a broad Yorkshire accent that hadn’t been affected by several years as an Oxford don

“How kind of you to join us, pri to his feet