“How come you speak the way you do, Rick? Years and years in England I don’t doubt.”

“How come you speak the way you do, Wilf? The tones, I mean. They’ve flattened.”

“Let’s not bother about geography, Rick. Just tell me as a matter of interest what you were doing that time in Evora.”

His eyes blinked. They were a little less bulging.

“Where’s Evora, Wilf?”

“Be your age, Rick. I just wanted to know what you were doing there. Well, I see you’re determined to keep your own counsel and after all why not? For the present you’ll be interested to hear that I’ve acclimated. I’ve been twice back to that place. You knew, didn’t you? Just down there in the fog with me hanging on for dear life, shit-scared of smashing, perhaps a yard under my feet there was a bloody great meadow, an alp, as they say. If I’d fallen I’d have gone a yard, and then if I’d wanted to fall any more I’d have had to canter across the meadow and throw myself off the other end of it. Don’t shake your head like that. You knew. You were up there only the day before spying out the land and you led me back to that place—oh I admit you probably didn’t arrange the rock fall but it was all a huge slice of luck for you, wasn’t it, the fog, the rock, the rock breaking the rail and me going to lean over? You’re a quick thinker, professor, I give you that, you did fool me, you bastard, Rick—”

“No sir, I did not, not in any way—”

“Quote, it seems I owe you my life, unquote.”

“But sir, you said that, not I, and—”

“Of course the old insect lent a hand laying his eggs under my carapace, I’ve no doubt about that, but by Christ you were on the side of creation, weren’t you?”

“I don’t—”

“If I hadn’t had the common cowardy sense to cut and run, God knows what would have happened.”

“Wilf, I must tell you. Remember, I’d been all the way out to just under the Hochalpenblick. I only did that once in daylight. With you, it was in fog. I couldn’t have known the path yard by yard and be sure what was under the fog, gee, I’d have to be a computer.”

“You knew.”

“OK. So I knew. But what I knew was a guess and I couldn’t be sure. Believe me, I thought I was risking my neck there, Wilf, and for you. I swear it.”

“Scout’s honour.”

“You’re distressing me, Wilf.”

“Have a good cry then. When you’ve done we’ll get on with the dog.”

It’s strange; but my memory is that Rick’s eyes really were filled with water and as if to make the point he took a tissue out of somewhere and wiped them with it.

“After all these years, Wilf—”

“Shut up, man. Don’t you want the paper?”

He took a bit of time over that, sniffing and wiping his eyes. When he spoke his voice was smaller.