“I gave him a pet name, even though he wasn’t my pet, he was my boss. I don’t know why he fired me. I thought “Dick Nose” was a delightfully cute name.”

“Hell’s bells. I don’t call him the Fist of God as a pet name, folks.”

“Though he slay me, yet I will praise him," he began softly, his voice a little tremulous at first. "I will rise up in the morning with the dew and praise his name. He has given me a place to serve him, a name with which to be known. He has called me forth and made my heart race with the wind on the Downs, made me soar with the blackbird in the evening. So though he slay me, yet I will praise him. Though sorrows be my lot, yet I will sing. When my last tear has fallen I will take up my song again, I will praise his most glorious exalted name.”

“I should begin at the beginning. I know that. But the trouble is that I don’t know the beginning. I wish I did. I do know my name, Arthur Hobhouse. Arthur Hobhouse had a beginning, that’s for certain. I had a father and a mother too, but God only knows who they were, and maybe even he doesn’t know for sure. I mean, God can’t be looking everywhere all at once, can he? So where the name Arthur Hobhouse comes from and who gave it to me I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s my real name. I don’t know the date and place of my birth either, only that it was probably in Bermondsey, London, sometime in about 1940.”

“Who are you?'I didn't understand the question.I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?'I gave him my name. 'Stopthief.”

“You didn't even know my name, I thought. You're just repeating what he said.”