If Lord Ickenham had not succumbed to the temptation to dislodge the hat of Beefy Bastable, the irascible QC, with a well-aimed Brazil nut, the latter"s famous legal mind might never have been stimulated to literature. But the incident provoked Beefy to write his expose of the younger generation, a novel so shocking that it caused endless repercussions for its hapless author, sparked off a whole series of outrageous misunderstandings, and required the inventive talents of Lord Ickenham himself to resolve.