breakfast room when he had said to me:

 

"I suppose it wasn't you making that crowing noise this morning, Stevens?"

 

My employer was referring, I realized, to a pair of gypsies gathering unwanted

iron who had passed by earlier making their customary calls. As it happened, I

had that same morning been giving thought to the dilemma of whether or not I was

expected to reciprocate my employer's bantering, and had been seriously worried

at how he might be viewing my repeated failure to respond to such openings. I

therefore set about thinking of some witty reply; some statement which would

still be safely inoffensive in the event of my having misjudged the situation.

After a moment or two, I said:

 

"More like swallows than crows, I would have said, sir. From the migratory

aspect." And I followed this with a suitably modest smile to indicate without

ambiguity that I had made a witticism, since I did not wish Mr Farraday to

restrain any spontaneous mirth' he felt out of a misplaced respectfulness.

 

Mr Farraday, however, simply looked up at me and said: "I beg your pardon,

Stevens?"

 

Only then did it occur to me that, of course, my witticism would not be easily

appreciated by someone who was not aware that it was gypsies who had passed by.

 

I could not see, then, how I might press on with this bantering; in fact, I