Slipping out of bed, he revealed naked, bandy legs below the hem of a cotton shirt over a flannel undervest. He stepped into trousers which appeared to be wide open to accept his legs and small and rotund paunch, pulled on a pair of old socks and then stepped into heavy boots he did not trouble to lace. A thick cloth coat and a battered felt hat completed the ensemble, but to this had to be added the working kit comprising one pipe, a plug of jet-black tobacco, a clasp-knife, a tin containing wax matches and a corkscrew.

Taking up the lamp, he passed outside.

It was not so very cold after all, although his breath did issue in the form of steam mixed with tobacco smoke. By the aid of the light he followed a narrow cinder path to its junction with a wide area of bitumen fronting a row of garages. Across this area he lurched along a path also of bitumen which skirted a large wood-stack and eventually arrived at a small door at the rear of Wideview Chalet. The door he opened with a key which he took from beneath a brick, and on passing into the house he found himself in a scullery in which part of his day was spent.

From the scullery he entered the kitchen, switched on the electric light, blew out his lamp and filled a tin kettle with water to place on a small electric stove. He then proceeded with the least noise possible to clean out the four grates of the cooking range, set in the centre of the kitchen, and to light fires in them.

By the time he had completed this work the kettle was at the boil. Bisker made a pot of tea, and whilst the tea was “drawing” he passed out to the scullery and re-fired the boiler which provided hot water to the bathrooms and to every bedroom. He was pouring milk into two cups when the cook appeared in the kitchen.

“Mornin’!” she said with a kind of lisp, as she was minus her false teeth.

“Day!” snarled Bisker.“Cupper tea?”