"What do you do for the women or is it indiscreet to ask?"

I laughed. "Whatever they pay for!"

I left it at that.

I went inside and tidied away various items I preferred her not to see, then I set about preparing my evening meal. After a time she followed me in and inspected the bleak hole Smaractus rented me. For the price it was an insult but I rarely paid his price.

There was an outer room in which a dog might just turn round, if he was a thin dog with his tail between his legs. A wonky table, a slanty bench, a shelf of pots, a bank of bricks I used as a cooking stove, a gridiron, wine jars (empty), rubbish basket (full). One way out to the balcony for when you got tired of stamping on the cockroaches indoors, plus a second opening behind a curtain in bright, welcoming stripes this led to the bedroom. Sensing it perhaps, she did not ask.

"In case you're used to all-night banquets that run through seven courses from eggs in fish pickle sauce to frozen sorbets dug out of snow pits, I warn you on Tuesdays my cook goes to see his granny." I had no cook, no slaves at all. My new client was beginning to look unhappy.

"Please don't trouble. I can eat when you take me home"

"You're going nowhere yet," I said. "Not until I know what I'm taking you back to. Now eat!"

We had fresh sardines. I would have liked to provide something more exciting, but sardines were what the woman who took it upon herself to leave my meals had left. I made a cold sweet sauce to liven up the fish: honey, with a dash of this, a sprinkle of that, the normal sort of thing. The girl watched me do it as if she had never seen anybody grinding lovage and rosemary in a mortar in her life. Perhaps she never had.

I finished first, then leaned my elbows on the edge of the table while I gazed at the young lady with a frank and trustworthy face.

"Now, tell your Uncle Didius all about it. What's your name?"