He lit the cigarette and sucked at it and smiled covertly at me.

‘Well, now,’ he said again. He had his little lamp beside him on the table and he played his fingers on it.

‘That is a fine day,’ I said. ‘What are you doing with a lamp in the white morning?’

‘I can give you a question as good as that,’ he responded. ‘Can you notify me of the meaning of a bulbul?’

‘A bulbul?’

‘What would you say a bulbul is?’

This conundrum did not interest me but I pretended to rack my brains and screwed my face in perplexity until I felt it half the size it should be.

‘Not one of those ladies who take money?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Not the brass knobs on a German steam organ?’

‘Not the knobs.’

‘Nothing to do with the independence of America or suchlike?’

‘No.’

‘A mechanical engine for winding clocks?’

‘No.’

‘A tumour, or the lather in a cow’s mouth, or those elastic articles that ladies wear?’

‘Not them by a long chalk.’

‘Not an eastern musical instrument played by Arabs?’ He clapped his hands.

‘Not that but very near it,’ he smiled, ‘something next door to it. You are a cordial intelligible man. A bulbul is a Persian nightingale. What do you think of that now?’