He sets himself chattering with spirited and easy grace, of men and things.

He works at the Town Hall and knows a lot of secrets which he lets us into.

He points to a couple of sippers at a table in the corner reserved for commercial people.

"The grocer and the ironmonger," he says, "there's two that know how to go about it! At the beginning of the war there was a business crisis by the force of things, and they had to tighten their belts like the rest.

Then they got their revenge and swept the dibs in and hoarded stuff up, and speculated, and they're still revenging themselves.