A plebeian crone in dirty black spoke from a bar-stool. "I," she said, "have had part of my stomach removed." There was a silence. The aged males ruminated this gratuitous revelation, wondering whether, coming from a female and a comparative stranger, it was really in the best of taste. Enderby said kindly: "That must have been quite an experience." The old woman looked crafty, gripped the counter's edge with papery hands that grew chalky at the knuckles, canted her stool towards Enderby and said, very loudly, "Pardon?"

"An experience," said Enderby, "never to be forgotten."

"Six hours on the table," said the woman. "Nobody here can't beat that."

"Crump," called the major-general in an etiolated martinet's voice. "Crump. Crump." He was not reminiscing about the first World War; he wanted the barman to replenish his rum-glass. Crump came from behind the bar, seventyish, in a waiter's white jacket, with a false smile both imbecilic and ingratiating, his grey head cocked permanently to one side like that of a listening parrot. "Yes, General," he said. "Similar, sir? Very good, sir."

"I'm always telling him," said an ancient with the humpty-dumpty head of Sibelius, "about that use of the word. It's common among barmen and landlords. They say you can't have the same again. But it is, in fact, precisely the same again that one wants. One doesn't want anything similar. You deal in words, Enderby. You're a writer. What's your view of the matter?"

"It is the same," agreed Enderby. "It's from the same bottle. Something similar is something different."

"Professor Taylor used to argue that out very persuasively," said an old man mottled like salami, a dewdrop on the hook of his nose.

"What's happened to Taylor?" asked the major-general. "We haven't seen him for quite some time."

"He died," said the mottled man. "Last week. While drawing a cork. Cardiac failure."