‘This object, first of all birth objects, for it was presented as a christening present, way back, belonged to your Great-great-great Grandfather Septimus Iremonger.’ At this instant the penknife appeared to bow towards me. ‘He was the first bailiff of our family, which before had been ragpickers of no estate. He took up the unpopular position and squeezed people and squeezed money and property from them. He was a genius for it.’ At this, many small objects – clay buttons, cloth buttons, very sorrowfullooking – jumped up from the floor and moved around the penknife, which harassed them, poked them, scratched them and sorted them in piles. ‘Where people failed, we, under Septimus’s guidance, rose higher; where they came undone we were done up nicely. We grew, they shrank, we bought up more space, they lived in less, we had more children that lived, they had more children that died. We were not loved for this. And we did not care. We bought up all the debts, any debts, every debt, we bought them, they became ours. People have wept at us, we are no stranger to tears, people have begged us, let them beg: it shall prosper them nothing, they have spat at us, they should be fined for that, they have cursed us, they have been fined for that, they have struck us, they have been imprisoned for that. And worse. It was Septimus that started it, so, so long ago, and great Septimus it was that found money in a dirtmound, deep in a London heap, searching about in the muck that others were too proud to touch, finding small things of value that others had tossed away; he cut himself with his knife and Iremonger blood mixed with the filth. And so it has ever since.’

In reaction to Grandfather’s last line, a series of other penknives appeared upon the handkerchief, some large, some small, some rusted, some polished, each bowing before me and then all quitting the stage, so that the slate was completely empty once more.

Do Not Trust a Thing