'Who would we put in it?' A. R. Woresley said.
'Who would you suggest? Who are the geniuses of today?'
'Albert Einstein.'
'Good,' I said. 'Who else?'
'Sibelius.'
'Splendid. And what about Rachmaninov?'
'And Debussy,' he said.
'Who else?'
'Sigmund Freud in Vienna.'
'Is he great?'
'He's going to be,' A. R. Woresley said. 'He is already world famous in medical circles.'
'I'll take your word for it. Go on.'
'Igor Stravinsky,' he said.
'I didn't know you knew music.'
'Of course.'
'I'd like to propose the painter Picasso in Paris,' I said.
'Is he a genius?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Would you accept Henry Ford in America?'
'Oh, yes,' I said. 'That's a good one. And our own King George the Fifth.'
'King George the Fifth!' he cried. 'What's he got to do with it?'
'He's royal blood. Just imagine what some women would pay for a child by the King of England!'
'You're being ridiculous, Cornelius. You can't go crashing into Buckingham Palace and start asking His Majesty the King if he would be good enough to provide you with an ejaculation of semen.'
'You wait,' I said. 'You haven't heard the half of it yet. And we won't stop at George the Fifth. We must have a very comprehensive stock indeed of royal sperm. All the Kings in Europe. Let's see. There's Haakon of Norway. There's Gustav of Sweden. Christian of Denmark. Albert of Belgium. Alfonso of Spain. Carol of Romania. Boris of Bulgaria. Victor Emmanuel of Italy.'
'You're being silly.'
'No, I'm not. Wealthy Spanish ladies of aristocratic blood would crave for a baby by Alfonso. It'll be the same in every country. The aristocracy worships the monarchy. It is essential that we have a good stock of royal sperm in our vault. And I'll get it. Don't you worry. I'll get it.'
'It's a hare-brained and impracticable stunt,' A. R. Woresley said. He put a lump of Stilton in his mouth and swilled it round with port. Thus he ruined both the cheese and the wine.
'I am prepared,' I said slowly, 'to invest every penny of my one hundred thousand pounds into our partnership. That's how hare-brained I think it is.'
'You're mad.'
'You'd have told me I was mad if you'd seen me setting off for the Sudan at the age of seventeen in search of Blister Beetle powder. You would, wouldn't you?'