‘Have you enjoyed it all, and have you given it up now?’

‘Enjoyed, yes, every minute. And given up now, yes again. Too easy, too tiring, interferes with the television. Watching it, I mean, not the reception, har har.’

I gave him a perfunctory smile.

‘Too easy?’ I asked, as rudely as I could.

‘Nowadays, yes, definitely. Look at the way these young fellers with the awful hair get away with it: all pursued by herds of young women, lowing with lust, beggin’ for it. Why, when I was a boy we were proud to get even an ugly bit of crumpet, but look at ’em now – have to fight the gels off. Pretty gels, too, ugly ones seem all to have vanished. It’s like the policemen, I suppose,’ he added cryptically.

‘But since those early days, Lord Dunromin, you’ve never found it difficult, have you?’

‘Certainly not. Certainly not. Just the reverse. Indeed, I’ve never understood why men of our generation’ – I started: surely he didn’t mean to include me? – ‘ever found seducin’ difficult. I mean, we few really competent seducers can never feel vain about our prowess for we know how absurdly, how insultingly simple the whole thing is. I mean, to start with, women are nearly all astonishingly stupid – you must know that – it’s hard to believe, sometimes, that they belong to the same species as you and me. Do you know that nine out of ten of ’em cannot tell margarine from butter? It’s a fact, I promise you, I’ve seen it proved again and again on the television.

‘Then there’s another thing in the seducer’s favour: almost all women, whether they know it or not, are actually dyin’ to be seduced – it’s important to them, d’you see. Some want it because they’re not married, some because they are; some because they’re really too old for it and some because they’re too young, heh heh; beautiful women need it to flatter their vanity and ugly ones need reassurance; a very few need it because they’re over-sexed but these are the exceptions – most of them are really quite frigid but they go on assuming the horizontal in the hope that their next mount will be Mr Right himself, who will at last waken them and induce in their absurd insides the magical moment they have all read so much about in the garbage they all read. In short, I doubt whether there’s such a thing as an unseducible woman in the world. Tragic thing is, not one in a thousand is worth your powder and shot. Experto crede. Older ones, by and large, are the best value: they always think it might be their last time, d’you see.’