As soon as Mel met Elliott Freemantle, the lawyer, he disliked him. Ten minutes later, he knew that he hated the man.

It seemed that Freemantle was being as unpleasant as possible. He replied rudely to everything that Mel said. Mel soon realized that the lawyer was trying to make him lose his temper. He continued to speak calmly and politely to him, but he was finding it increasingly difficult.

Freemantle claimed that he did not care that people's lives were being ruined by the noise from the airport.

'We do care,' Mel told him. 'We know that there's a problem, and we're doing our best to solve it.'

'Then your best is not good enough. And what have you done? You've just made a lot of empty promises, that's all.'

'That's not true. We only use runway two five - which is the runway nearest to Meadowood - when we have to. The airport loses money by doing this. Perhaps you don't know this, but we've had many meetings with representatives of Meadowood before.'

'Perhaps you didn't tell them the truth at all those other meetings. This meeting is going to be very different!'

Mel decided not to answer. He saw that the reporters were writing busily, and knew that this was what Freemantle wanted. He felt sorry for Cindy, who had no interest at all in this matter.

'You tell us that the runway nearest to Meadowood is not used,' Elliot continued, 'but it was certainly in use tonight.'

'There's been a storm,' Mel said. 'I suppose that you've all noticed it? We had to use two five because three zero is blocked.'

'We understand the reason, Mr Bakersfeld,' an older man said, 'but that doesn't help us. We still suffer from the noise. My name is Floyd Zanetta, and-'

'Excuse me,' Elliott Freemantle interrupted. 'There's another point that I should like to make. We ought to tell you that we intend to take this airport to court, and we intend to win our case. Your airport, Mr Bakersfeld, is going to be closed down.'

Of course Elliott knew that this would never happen. He was speaking well tonight, though. He wished that he could be heard by a larger group of people.

'You are free to try anything you like,' Mel said, 'but I don't believe that any court would close down this airport.'

'Oh? I didn't know that you were a lawyer! '

'I'm not, as I'm sure you know.'

'Well, I am a lawyer, you see,' Elliott Freemantle said, 'and I can tell you that there have been many cases like this. The airports have lost them.'