‘You have broken in, Alfred!’ said his sister. ‘Haven’t you? haven’t you? I will have a suit cut for you tomorrow, Steerpike,’ she continued. ‘You will be here, I suppose? Where are you sleeping? Is he sleeping here? Where do you live? Where does he live, Alfred? What have you arranged? Nothing, I expect. Have you done anything? Have you? have you?’

‘What sort of thing, Irma, my dear? What sort of thing are you referring to? I have done all sorts of things, I have removed a gallstone the size of a potato, I have played delicately upon my violin while a rainbow shone through the dispensary window; I have plunged so deeply into the poets of grief that save for my foresight in attaching fish-hooks to my clothes I might never again have been drawn earthwards, ha, ha! from those excruciating depths!’

Irma could tell exactly when her brother would veer off into soliloquy and had developed the power to pay no attention at all to what he said. The footsteps upstairs seemed forgotten. She watched Steerpike as he poured her out a glass of port with a gallantry quite remarkable in its technical perfection of movement and timing.

‘You wish to be employed. Is that it? Is that it?’ she said.

‘It is my ardent desire to be in your service,’ he said.

‘Why? Tell me why,’ said Miss Prunesquallor.

‘I endeavour to keep my mind in an equipoise between the intuitive, and rational reasoning, madam,’ he said. ‘But with you I cannot, for my intuitive desire to be of service overshadows my reasons, though they are many, I can only say I feel a desire to fulfil myself by finding employment under your roof. And so,’ he added, turning up the corners of his mouth in a quizzical smile, ‘that is the reason why I cannot exactly say why.’

‘Mixed up with this metaphysical impulse, this fulfilment that you speak of so smoothly,’ said the Doctor, ‘is no doubt a desire to snatch the first opportunity of getting away from Swelter and the unpleasant duties which you have no doubt had to perform. Is that not so?’

‘It is,’ said Steerpike.

This forthright answer so pleased the Doctor that he got up from his chair and, smiling toothily, poured himself yet another glass. What pleased him especially was the mixture of cunning and honesty which he did not yet perceive to be a still deeper strata of Steerpike’s cleverness.