Corridors of Power by C.P. Snow

It was late that same afternoon when I received a note from Hector Rose – not a minute, but a note in his beautiful italic handwriting, beginning ‘My dear Lewis' and ending, ‘Yours ever'. The substance was less emollient. Rose, who did not lack moral courage, and who was sitting three doors down the corridor, had shied away from telling it in person.

Could you possibly make it convenient to come to my room at ten a.m. tomorrow? I know that this is both unpleasantly early and at intolerably short notice: but our friends in-[a branch of Security] are apt to be somewhat pressing. They wish to have a personal interview with you, which is, I believe, the last stage in their proceedings. They have asked for a similar arrangement with Sir F Getliffe in the afternoon. I take it you would not prefer to approach F G yourself, and we are acting on that assumption. I cannot tell you how sorry I am that the notice should be so short, and I have already had a word to say about this.