While dear Quintus interviewed the persistent baggage, using a side room which we kept tidy for that purpose, I kissed Helena, pulled a face at the baby, tickled Julia, locked the dog in a bedroom, and slipped out of the house. (Leaving home in a hurry was much slicker when I was single.) If Ursulina decided our boy was adorable, she might dig in her talons. My youngest brother-in-law was very polite and hated saying no to women in distress. I knew that all women were hard as nuts, but he would easily be manoeuvred into taking the commission. Fine. He could do it. Now our team had a nagging granny specialist.

I was off to try my skills on a much more difficult female. Forget the divorcee. My motto was hit them gently to see what happens – then hit them again, hard. I was going to revisit Calpurnia Cara.

There is a trick informers use. If you have assailed a house once in the afternoon and want another attempt, go next time in the morning. If the household is wealthy, they may work their porters in shifts. Mind you, many rich families work their door porters to death, thinking that the provision of a cubicle with a stool means the porter has an easy life. It's a boring career, and that can work to your advantage. On the whole though, door porters become obstructive, maybe because sitting on a stool all day cuts off the circulation painfully in their legs. It affects their brains too. They get above themselves. I hate the swine.

The Metelli, as I might by then have expected, kept their porter in situ all day. I observed this from the same unfriendly snackbar where I had rested my trotters on the counter yesterday. This meant I might have to wait around for hours before that other informing trick: knocking on the door at lunchtime when the porter takes his meal break. Luckily, I did not need to wait so long. While the door was open for a delivery, I heard the porter ask another slave to stand in while he went off for a pee.