Erhardt watched the smoke curl from the end of his cigarette like the tendrils of some strange plant. In the near distance, past the swirling smoke, was Edward's face in soft focus, looking villainous as ever with his craggy nose, bad complexion, and high forehead crested with its tousled tuft of wiry black. He sat at the window bench, his pineapple-shaped head blocking Erhardt's view of the sea. He wore the same expression he always did, the one that was so deadly serious, yet so seriously full of it. Sir Edward Dalliance, Earl of Grift, Duke of Dupe. All pomp and no consequence.

How many times had Erhardt been sapped by Dalliance? Surely too many to count. What makes a man sustain a friendship such as that? Is it only so that he himself can be sustained? For if a man has no wife, and no friends, then what, after all, has he got? Naught but the winds.