Hush! I know you, he said, cheater at Patience, keyhole peeper, keeper of nail-clippings and earwax, lusting after silhouettes on Laburnam’s blind, searching for thighs in the Library of Classical Favourites, Sam Thumb in the manhole prying up on windy days.

I am not like that at all, he said, as the man with the birthmark came over to his table and sat down opposite him.

“I thought you were going,” the man said. “You told me you were going. You’ve been here an hour now.”

“I saw you,” Samuel said.

“I know you saw me. You must have seen me, mustn’t you, because you were looking at me,” the man said. “Not that I want the twopence, I’ve got a houseful of furniture. Three months full to the ceiling. I’ve got enough chairs for everyone in Paddington to have a sit down. Twopence is twopence,” he said.

“But it was twopence to the waitress, too.”

“She’s got sixpence now, hasn’t she? She’s made fourpence clear. It doesn’t do any harm to you just because she thinks you were trying to nip it off to her.”

“It was my sixpence.”

The man raised his hands. The palms were covered with calculations in ink. “And they talk about equality. Does it matter whose sixpence it was? It might have been mine or anybody’s. There was talk of calling the manageress,” he said, “but I put my foot down there.”

They were both silent for several minutes.

“Made up your mind where you’re going when you move out of here?” the man said at last. “Because move you must, some time, you know.”

“I don’t know where I’m going. I haven’t any idea in the world. That’s why I came up to London.”

“Look here,” the man said, controlling his voice, “there’s sense in everything. There’s bound to be. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to carry on, would we? Everybody knows where he’s going, especially if he’s come by train. Otherwise he wouldn’t move from where he took the train from, that’s elementary.”

“People run away.”

“Have you run away?”

“No.”

“Then don’t say it. Don’t say it.” His voice trembled; he looked at the figures on his palms. Then gently and patiently he began again. “Let’s get the first thing straight. People who have come must go. People must know where they’re going, otherwise the world could not be conducted on a sane basis. The streets would be full of people just wandering about, wouldn’t they? Wandering about and having useless arguments with people who know where they’re going. My name is Allingham, I live in Sewell Street off Praed Street, and I’m a furniture dealer. That’s simple, isn’t it? There’s no need to complicate things if you keep your head and know who you are.”

“I’m Samuel Bennet. I don’t live anywhere at all. I don’t do any work, either.”

“Where are you going to go, then? I’m not a nosey parker, I told you my business.”

“I don’t know.”