He is disgruntled and uninterested in his work as a military cartographer coloring maps, wanting only to get involved in adventures out in the desert - where "Bedouin Tribes Attack Turkish Stronghold.Fields wrote the original screenplay, but credits himself with thenom de plumeof Mahatma Kane Jeeves (a play on the phrase often heard in English drawing-room comedies: ""My hat, my cane, Jeeves"").During a dinner invitation with their friend Edward "Hutch" Hutchins (Maurice Evans), he warns them of the apartment building""s notorious, sordid and unsavory reputation for witchcraft and cannibalism over 50 years earlier -- (and provides some of the film""s foreshadowing of what a prospective mother would fear - underlined):Are you aware that the Bramford had a rather unpleasant reputation around the turn of the century? It""s where the Trench sisters conducted their little dietary experiments."]In his office, Colonel Stone tells his son directly: "Don""t ry to take advantage.Don""t expect any favoritism...You""ve got to start from the bottom.Learn everything, and if you don""t measure up, out." McGregor realizes the young lad has been miffed by his father and could become bitter, stating that: "the old man has ice-water in his veins" and he soon takes him under his wing as his ward.