"You're our first visitors since last May. Could I be troubling you for your names? I should have told you, I'm Joe Menhenniot."

"My name is Stephen Flinton. The lady is my wife, Judith Flinton and our twin babies are called Johnny and Sarah Flinton. They'll be one in April."

It was then that something unnerving happened. Menhenniot stared Stephen in the eye, with an expression of chilling, calculated evil. Stephen looked away. Menhenniot's change from warmth to hatred, terrified him.

"Is there something the matter?" he asked.

Menhenniot sprawled over the desk. His and Stephen's faces were almost touching. Menhenniot grabbed his visitor by the collar.

"Are you in any way related to Joshua Flinton?" The question was a combination of a hiss and a shout.

"What's wrong, Joe?" his slatternly wife asked Menhenniot.

"This fellow's related to Joshua Flinton," replied the husband, in a terrified, hushed murmur.

Menhenniot coughed again and spat a jet of black sputum onto the desk. "Joshua Flinton came here quite a few times. It was last May, when he drove my wife, myself and everyone else in the hotel, off their heads. I've now got cirrhosis of the liver because of him."

"What, exactly did he do, when he came here last May? When you're telling me, keep your foghorn down and your story brief. You're frightening the babies again."

Menhenniot went back to the desk and sat on the rotating chair behind it.

"I suppose you'd better bring your wife and family into the bar-room," he said. "My wife will tell you what your uncle did. I haven't got the stomach for it."