‘You don’t want none of that, Mr Charlie,’ said Jock, ‘you’ll be wanting to get off to boo-boo’s.’ I glared.

‘Have you been listening at keyholes?’ I demanded.

‘’Course not. I’ve heard Madam use the phrase in public, frequently.’

‘Ugh.’

‘Yeah.’

I turned away.

‘Mr Charlie,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘That mate of mine I was teaching dominoes – the one you scragged.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He was going on about toads. He reckons the Jerseys think a lot of them, which is why they don’t like being called them.’

‘You put that beautifully, Jock.’

‘Yeah. He got on about it because the old geezer who’s come to do the garden just buried one alive in a pickle jar to make the flowers grow.’

‘To make the flowers grow? Do go on.’

‘They all do it here, he reckons. It doesn’t seem to bother the toads, they’re nearly always alive when they dig them up in the autumn. Funny, innit? You’d think they’d get hungry.’

‘Or thirsty?’

‘Yeah. Anyway, a lot of the Jerseys, specially the old ones, reckon a toad’s sort of holy and they don’t like people taking the mickey about it.’

I took a gulp of his tea.

‘You should put a little rum in this,’ I advised.

‘Well, I haven’t got any rum, have I?’

‘Do you mean you have forgotten how to pick the lock of the drinks cupboard?’

He maintained an injured silence. I went to fetch the rum, while he made some more Sergeant-Major’s.

When we were firmly seated astride the tea and certain Welsh Rabbits which Jock had conjured up to help it down, I waxed informative, a vice of mine which I can by no means cure.

‘Jock,’ I said, ‘did you know that for fifteen centuries people believed that the toad had a precious jewel inside its skull?’

‘Reelly?’ he said. ‘What give them that idea, then?’

‘Pliny or Aristotle or one of those chaps who wrote it in a book.’ Jock munched and golluped awhile.

‘Well, didn’t nobody think to chop one open and take a look?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Fucking ignorant, all them wops, aren’t they,’ he said, obscurely. I couldn’t find it in my heart to contradict him.

‘He went on about hares, too,’ Jock went on. ‘Seems there aren’t supposed to be any hares on the Island but a few years back there was a right big bugger seen and the farmers reckoned it sucked all the milk out of them funny little cows they have here. So they laid up for it and shot it and better-shot it but it wasn’t no use, so one of them put a silver button in his gun and shot it in the bum and the hare goes off limping and the next day this creepy old tart who lives nearby has a bandage on her leg.’