He also made himself a weekly allowance of five shillings for cigarettes, stationery, amusements, shoe-repairs, razor-blades, laundry, toothpaste, hospitality and 'bus fares; and having thus cut his coat to his cloth, wore it in great content. The only thing he had not allowed for (and this in an author must surely be considered strange) was Love. Upon the death of his distant, unaffectionate father, Alistair French, a young store clerk,...