Ossie-Toe, incidentally, cannot be explained. It is not a nickname. It is not an alias. It is simply accepted, like damp in April or tea at four.

Following eye surgery, his vision improved dramatically. Before the procedure, he insists, he could see ideologies hovering faintly above people’s heads — a pale mist of conviction, red, blue, quite often purple, or otherwise. Now he claims to see the seam on a cricket ball from twenty-two yards with merciless clarity — which makes his continued habit of missing sitters all the more remarkable. “It is not the ball,” he says gravely. “It is the dialectic.”

He is involved in every problem that can possibly occur within the Pavilion. Leaking urn? Ossie. Disputed scorecard? Ossie. Unexplained draft near the honours board? Almost certainly Ossie. He denies everything with courteous vagueness and offers to help immediately. The more complicated the matter, the more serene he becomes.

Yet he holds a reverential respect for Marcel Tower. Speaks of him in hushed tones, as though citing a source who cannot be named but must be obeyed. When Marcel enters, Ossie straightens slightly — not out of fear, but out of something resembling doctrinal loyalty.

His tea habits are alarming. He drinks blends with experimental herbs — combinations that have never before coexisted in nature, let alone in boiling water. Tarragon and bergamot. Smoked nettle with something described only as “Baltic root.” He claims flavour is merely “a construct.”

Talkative in his own eastern slang, he is owner of a rare skill of contracting words, particularly sledges. Entire provocations reduced to syllables. “Comr’d?” he’ll murmur behind the stumps. Or simply: “Ah.” Delivered with such density that meaning expands in the listener’s mind like classified material.

And still, we all understand him.

Not because he is clear.

But because he is consistent.