'You're cute, you know that don't you, you're cute.'

I nodded slowly, for I was in the mood to agree to anything. 'Yes, I know. Whenever I look into a mirror I get a shock.'

She giggled and took a ladylike sip from her glass, and I wondered if the people who owned this place knew what she was up to, or if the smart young barman who had a suspicion of a knowing smirk on his face was receiving his cut.

'What's a nice looking fellow like you doing on your own?'

'Getting drunk,' I said briefly, 'it's a hobby. Some people collect stamps, others milk bottle tops, but I get drunk. I do it very well.'

She giggled again, and there was something horrifying about that beautiful mask; she looked like an animated shop window dummy, or a body from which the soul had been sucked out.

'You're funny. I like witty men. Say something else.'

I grinned and felt my face crinkle, like a deflated balloon pressed by a child's destructive fingers. 'A fool is funny because he dare not think, for thought is the pathway to truth, and beyond truth lies madness.'

She shrugged her shapely shoulders and they gleamed in the bright light like white clouds on a winter's day, and for some reason I felt sad, which was strange for usually I am a cheerful drinker.

That's not funny, it's rather frightening. I say, you're not squiffy, are you?'

How I would have answered this insulting insinuation I do not know, for let it be recorded, never in fifteen years of heavy drinking have I been drunk, or as my uncle (the one knocked down by a bus in the Fulham Road) would have aptly expressed himself: 'been seen the worse for strong drink', for at that moment there was a sudden influx of people who came into the room, chattering and babbling and in less than no time the place was crowded, and I was troubled by the thought that I might not have time or opportunity to buy my second consignment.