Now all men have their various tastes when it comes to admiring feminine beauty, some rave about legs, others breasts, although believe me, a lot of deception is practised in that direction these days, but for myself, show me a flawless white back and I'd raise my hat, always supposing I wore one, which I don't. This girl knew what she'd got, and made the most of it, for her dress was a mere tape that supported the legal amount of material at the front and nothing at all above the waist line at the back. She must have felt my gaze, which isn't surprising, for she turned her head, and I saw a pair of cornflower blue eyes set in a pale, beautiful, if characterless face, surmounted by a pile of artistically dressed hair. Then she winked, and without so much as by your leave, came and sat at my table. I sighed deeply and downed my second whiskey to wash away my disillusion, for surely the strangest part of man's make-up is that he will pawn his soul for what he thinks he cannot have, but will turn his head in disgust when he learns it is well within his means to buy it. She sank down in the chair opposite mine, and said in a low, husky, carefully cultivated, seductive voice:

'Aren't you going to buy me a drink?'

I said: 'Why not? But you will have to fetch it yourself, I never stir before the sixth drink and by then it's a risky business.'

She took my pound note, making a small grimace, and the small sherry must have been exorbitantly expensive, or she was very forgetful for I never saw my change. When she came back and reseated herself, and the third whiskey was doing its bounded duty so that the sharp edges of the bar were becoming nicely rounded, and a faint mist was obscuring the far end of the room, for if truth must be told, and I can see no reason why it shouldn't, this was not the first bar I had visited that evening; she said: