‘And what’s your name?’ he asked the little girl standing next to him and looking at him as she nibbled a bar of chocolate.

The little girl laughed and did not reply.

‘Why don’t you answer the gentleman, you rude little girl?’ said her nanny, a young and not unattractive girl, who was sitting next to Gurdweill and reading a book, preening herself as if this attention paid to her charge was a compliment actually intended for her.

‘I shan’t say.’ The little girl tossed her head. ‘Let him guess!’

Gurdweill began reeling off a list of names, while the little girl, so delighted by the game that she forgot her chocolate, cried, ‘No, no!’ Then he began making up names, strange names that sounded like the primitive language of some tribe in the jungles of Africa, and conjured up a picture of naked Negroes and exotic trees with heavy fruits hanging from their boughs. ‘Bootoomi,’ he said, ‘Kashiloo, Moo, Aroozi, Memhooroo, Bizimi …’

‘No, no!’ cried the little girl, convulsed with laughter, exposing sharp tiny teeth smeared with chocolate. ‘There aren’t any names like that!’

The nanny, too, smiled in amusement.

‘Then your name must be Suzi! Yes, that must be it! Because you look like Suzi and you’re as big as she is too.’

‘Not true!’ protested the child. ‘I’m bigger than she is! Suzi’s still a baby. She’s only so big’ — she held her hand about six inches from the ground — ‘and she won’t go to school next year even, but I’m going to school this winter! Aren’t I, Fräulein?’

‘Yes, dear.’

The nanny closed her book and put it down on the bench next to her, evidently anticipating more amusement from the conversation than the book.

‘In that case,’ Gurdweill resumed, ‘if you’re going to school soon, you really are a big girl. And a big girl like you must have a name.’

‘Of course I have! Should I tell him, Fräulein?’

‘Yes of course you should.’

‘Well then, my name’s Tini. Tini Mertel.’ And after a second’s pause: ‘And what’s your name? You must say your name too!’

‘Don’t be so cheeky, Tini,’ the nanny rebuked her.

‘I’ll tell you with pleasure, little missy. My name’s Rudolf.’

‘Like my uncle! Like Uncle Rudolf!’ the little girl cried in delight. ‘And what’s your other name?’

‘Gurdweill.’

‘Gurdweill,’ she repeated in a disappointed voice. ‘But Uncle Rudolf’s surname is the same as ours. Mertel. And he’s got a big car! He always takes me for a ride in it. Once he took me all the way to Grinzing. And Mummy was there too. Have you got a car?’

‘No, little missy.’ Gurdweill smiled. ‘I haven’t got a car. But I have got a little boy, and his name is Martin.’

‘And what class is he going to?’