He would not have minded breaking down in front of Grim, for he knew that Grim knew him inside out.

On the contrary, he looked down on me, as a mere amateur at the game, who had never starved at the Jaffa Gate, nor eaten candle-ends, or gambled for milliemes* with cab-drivers' sons while picking up odds and ends of gossip for a government that hardly knew of his existence.

In front of me he proposed to act the man--guide-- showman--mentor.

He considered himself my boss.

[*The smallest coin of the country.] But it was stem work.