“Oh! tonight! Let me see. Ah! I just glanced at my watch, saw that I had already been out just three minutes over the precise half-hour, decided there was not time to go round, turned⁠—”

“You always do.”

He looked at me⁠—reflected. “Perhaps I do, now I come to think of it. But what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

“Why, this!”

“This?”

“Yes. Why do you do it? Every night you come making a noise⁠—”

“Making a noise?”

“Like this”⁠—I imitated his buzzing noise.

He looked at me, and it was evident the buzzing awakened distaste. “Do I do that ?” he asked.

“Every blessed evening.”

“I had no idea.”

He stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. “Can it be,” he said, “that I have formed a Habit?”

“Well, it looks like it. Doesn’t it?”

He pulled down his lower lip between finger and thumb. He regarded a puddle at his feet.