The boys went out last night to watch a movie. They arrived home at 3 am, somewhat blasted and with the sleeve of Harry's shirt torn badly and Charles sporting a bruise across his face that I knew would hurt as soon as he sobered up.

Harry came up to me as I opened the door and said, "Good old Daniel! Sorry about the car."
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I thought I needed Estelle's opinion on Harry so I took her up west for a meal last night. I told her about the incident the night before and the impossibility of keeping the lad out of trouble when he has such a keen instinct for finding it. I asked her what she thought his problem was and she laughed.
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I had some business in Soho last night, and took the boys with me. Charles came with me to a little meeting with a very reliable fence and Harry volunteered to wait outside and look after the car.

Next time, both are coming in with me.

When I left him, he moved into the driving seat. He's tall for his age and, behind the wheel of a car, he can look anything up to 20, especially to a lady of the evening who is looking for a customer. I came out to find one such lady endangering the paintwork with some sharp-looking bangles as she leant on MY car and said, "Evening, sir. Looking for a good time. To which Harry replied, "Always." with a hopeful grin.

I went over and said, "Harry, stop bothering the lady. We have to go."

She frowned at me and walked away and Harry said, "I was only being polite."

"Harry, you're fifteen." I said, "There's a limit to how polite you can be."

"Nothing was going to happen!" he said, but he sulked for the rest of the night.

Last night, the boys were out late, celebrating a little luck we had at a casino. I went home. I had our next piece of luck to plan.

At 3 am, when they still weren't home, I began to worry. I called the last bar we'd been in together and was told they had left some hours before. Harry's a disaster drunk, so I was relying on Charles to make sure they both got back.

Just after 4 am, I heard Charles yelling, "Be quiet, Harry! People are trying to sleep."

"So am I!" said Harry, "But you keep waking me up!"

"Well, I can't carry you and him!" Charles shouted.
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The boys were watching some drab little drama on television last night. They seemed quite enthralled by it. I was less impressed.

"Television!" I said.
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Last night, I argued with Harry over something ridiculous. I don't even remember how it started, just that we were both tired and irritated with other people and we both overreacted until finally he yelled, "I'm sick of this, Daniel! I don't have to do what you say!" then he went to his room and slammed the door.

Charles came in from the dining room, sat at my desk and said, "Harry sounds cheerful. What happened?"

"He'll be fine, later." I said, hoping it was true.

"You want me to go up and talk to him?" he said.

"No, you'd probably get something thrown at you." I said.

"You know what he needs, don't you?" said Charles.

"If you say five hundred pounds and the use of the car, I will smell a conspiracy."

"No, although, now you mention it, I am a bit short of readies."

"Harry, how much does your father pay on school fees to make sure you talk well?"

"I'm Charles, Daniel." he said.

"Yes. Forgive me. You sometimes seem just like him."

"Those are fighting words." said Charles.

"Admit it, you do like him now." I said.

He laughed. "He's a sandwich short of a picnic, sometimes a picnic short of a picnic, but his heart's in the right place."

"If anything happened to me .... " I said.

He stood up suddenly. "Don't ever say that again!"

"I'm not immortal, my boy. The day will come."

"You don't have to be immortal, just don't die while I'm alive!"

"If anything, death, justice or the plagues of Egypt come between us, I want you and Harry to stick together. You're all he's got if I go and he'll be a good friend to you."

"If you die, I bet he finds a way to blame me." said Charles.

"He likes you." I said, "At this moment, a lot more than he likes me."

"Daniel, you're a twit!" he said, "He's only in this mood because he likes you. Whenever you argue, he starts thinking you don't like him, so he goes insane, just like I did at school when that letter came saying Dad was ditching me again."

"Your father is a dreamer, always was."

"So are you, but somehow you always manage to turn up when I need you. You're a better Dad to me than he ever was and to Harry too."

For a moment, I wondered whether he'd worked it out, but then he added, "Better than his real dad, anyway."

"Not hard." I said, "The man was a rat."

"So Harry said. It must be hard, not knowing. At least I can picture the one I'm hating."

"You don't hate him." I said.

"No, but one day I'll find a way."

"Hate is a waste of time and energy. If you hate someone, they control your life." I said.

"You've never hated anyone?" he said.

"How do you think I found out?" I said.

"Who?"

"Someone who beat a child of four and hounded a young woman to death."

"Tell me his name. I'll kill him." said Charles.

"There is nothing he would love more than to put someone I love in prison." I said, "For my sake, and so he never gains any kind of victory, never hate anyone and never kill. Violence is for men like him, who know no other way."

"Who was the woman?" he said, "Someone you loved?"

"She was too good for me." I said, the truth serving as an effective lie.

"So is Estelle." he said, "But you still try your luck."

That shocked me. An occasional flirtation with Estelle does occur, but I had no idea he knew. "Estelle knows better than to get involved with a man like me." I said.

"Yes." he said. He winked at me. "But maybe you can change her mind."

"Estelle deserves more than I can give." I said.

"Maybe she could change you."

"You think I need to be changed?" I said.

"I don't think I'd want to live a hundred years without someone to love."

Contrary to the wild calculations you and Harry come up with, I am not a hundred years old."

"No, but it's on the horizon, isn't it?" he said.

"I'm not halfway there yet!" I said.

"Then you're young enough to settle down with someone." he said.

"Love is for men with more courage and less experience." I said.

"Well, that means I should be in with a chance." he said.

"Love can be very dangerous." I said.

"So can polo, but it's worth the risk." said Charles.

He went to the foot of the stairs and yelled up them, "Harry, stop sulking! Come and have some of Daniel's brandy!"

"Sod him, sod you and sod the sodding brandy!" said Harry.

"Pure poetry." said Charles to me, "It's Harry that needs the big school fees."

He turned back to the stairs and shouted, "I'm making dinner. I thought I'd do something with those steaks. You want some?"

Harry's door flew open and he came down the stairs, missing several of them. "You can't cook toast! Let me do it."

"I'm sorry, Harry." I said.

"I'm not talking to you." he said.

"Ah. Anything I can do to change that?" I said.

"No." he said.

"Good for you, Harry." said Charles, "I never talk to the bugger either, if I can help it."

"Don't call him that." said Harry.

Harry went into the kitchen and Charles smiled at me and said, "You know, he's just like you."

"Determined, stubborn?"

"Easily manipulated." he said.

Harry seems to be perpetually hungry. He hates to miss a meal and needs to know that his kitchen is under his control. The tension between the boys has lessened a lot, but Charles still gets into trouble whenever he meddles with anything in the kitchen. My activities there are tolerated, but Harry is always relieved to take over again. Maybe it's just that he spent too long scavenging for food. At least he stopped hoarding it around the house.

With Charles, the problem is girls, specifically, the fact that they all seem to notice Harry first. He's taller and he has his mother's looks. He's never going to find it hard to get a girl's attention. I'm sure Charles will be fine. He's a good-looking boy too, and a little more polished than Harry. He just needs better tactics, but I won't give him any just yet. I don't want either of them chasing girls right now.

Last night, the boys went to see a movie together, which I consider real progress. I waited for them to come back, in case they had fought or argued, but they came home in good spirits.

They have a similar sense of humour and, when they're not using their wit to creatively insult one another, can easily make each other laugh. I gave them each a drop of brandy on their return.

This morning, the Major prattled on endlessly about his illustrious family. Apparently, he had an ancestor at Agincourt. Charles and I quickly became bored and made our excuses. Harry stayed to listen. The boy loves stories.

My brother actually sent a letter to my club. Well, hardly a letter, more a note. He's in China. He did express concern for Charles, but evinced no great desire to see him again soon. I didn't tell Charles. He'd want to read the letter, and I don't want him hurt by his father's coolness toward him.

When I got back from the club, I felt an urge to talk to my son. He was still with the major, so a long chat was impossible, but I told him I was impressed by something he had done and his face lit up with that smile that is so like his mother's. I wish I could tell him that he's not alone in the world and that his father loves him dearly. In some ways, I am worse than my foolish brother.

Well, they're not close friends, but Harry and Charles are finally talking like civilised men. This morning, Harry made breakfast and Charles thanked him. It made my day start far more peacefully than has hitherto been the case.

Harry went out to pick some pockets and Charles and I had lunch at a restaurant in Kensington. Suddenly he said, "Harry's not wholly unreasonable, really."

"I'm very fond of him." I said.

"He can be funny, when he tries. I think I can make allowances for his lack of education."

"It's true he hasn't had a lot of education." I said, "But his mind is like quicksilver."

Charles looked at me for a moment and said, "I still don't understand why you took him on."

"He reminds me of me at that age." I said, which was true, in a way.

"A photograph would be less trouble." said Charles, but there was no malice in his tone.

Today, the boys almost came to blows over whether movies are better than plays, with Charles calling Harry a barbarian because he'd never seen Othello and Harry calling Charles something I won't repeat for saying Casablanca was "utter nonsense". When Charles expressed the view that Ingrid Bergman was nothing special, I had to stand between them.

Charles then, deliberately, spoke in Latin. "Ipsa scientia potestas est." Knowledge itself is power.

Harry looked for a moment completely lost, then he decided to bluff it out. "That's easy for you to say!" he said.

"Magna res est vocis et silentii temperamentum." I said to Charles. The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.

"Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter." he replied. Your knowledge is nothing when no one else knows that you know it.

"Quod cibus est aliis, aliis est wenenum." I said. What is food to some is poison to others.

"Can I help it if he had no education?" said Charles.

"Harry has had a fine education." I said.

"People who speak Greek are mainly poofs." said Harry, "Poofs and toffs and ... "

"Latin, you berk!" said Charles.

"I said Latin. I did say bloody Latin!" said Harry.

"Which am I?" I said, "A poof or a toff?"

"You're a toff, Daniel." said Harry, much to my relief.

"I'd rather be a toff than a bloody oik like you!" said Charles.

"Well, tough, because you're a poof!" said Harry.

"If I might interject ... " I said.

"What language is that?" said Harry.

"He's so ignorant!" said Charles.

"I've tried to teach you both to fit in anywhere." I said, "This class warfare, entertaining though it might be to the plebs is marking you both as inferior men. Men confident of their position do not put down those they see as beneath them."

"He started it." said Harry.

"An excellent argument for any three year old." I said, "I expect better from you."

"Ha!" said Charles.

"Is that what passes for debate at Eton, these days?" I said.

I left the room. Outside, I waited. Inevitably, I heard what I had been aiming for. Harry said, "Arrogant bloody bastard." and Charles, with feeling replied, "Yes, I don't know why we listen to him."