Good. He had finally confessed. Now we were getting somewhere. He couldn't run away from an admission like that, even if he did get past me this time. It would track him down, sinking its claws into the soft underbelly of his conscience wherever he went. Repentance, reform and redemption - only through these could he hope to escape from the trap he had laid for himself. Even he would have to see this, whether he wished to or not.

Time for the panther to finish off his kill! "What a thing to say", I cried out. "Truly, what a thing to say!" Echoes carried down the passage, awakening somebody I was sure, but I was afraid to let my voice die away.

"Of course I can guess, did guess from the first time I saw you, what kind of state you are in. I've had some experience, and don't joke when I say that I imagine you must feel seasick, though your feet are on dry land. You can't remember the real names of things, so in haste you fling temporary names at them, as fast as you can. Fast enough that almost nobody can remember what you have said, and tell you precisely what sort of nonsense you have spoken. But your back has hardly been turned on your absurd new creation, when it has run from you and been forgotten, even by its creator. A poplar in the fields which you called 'the tower of Babel' ..."

"I think we stand beneath it, even now", he broke in with an impish grin which I did not return

"... since you didn't or wouldn't know that it was a poplar, stands waving anonymously again, so you have to call it 'Noah in his cups'"

"I fear that I must be Ham in this story of yours, for I can scarcely remember the last time I saw such a tree decently attired. Do you have a point to make, kind sir? I think not. I'm thankful to say that I don't understand what you've been talking about", he replied, his foot now raised against the wall as if he might dare to launch himself from it at any moment.

Such insolence!