"The French Minister lives in Ailesbury Road, doesn't he?" The four people at the next table were stalking about Ailesbury Road! Ailesbury Road it seemed months since I had heard of Ailesbury Road. I listened gratefully. This really was home at last; and when they asked each other what was on this week at the Savoy I could have cried. I went out and sat quietly in the lounge lost in rather wistful Dreams "H'ya Jem!" it sounded like an explosion. It was, indeed, the Assyrians, sweeping down like wolves on the fold. My past life had caught up with me, and from the first "H'ya Jem," through hundreds of others to the final "Cheerio, Jem," I lived the longest Saturday night of my existence. The West of Ireland Championship has been the grave of giants.

We drove out to Tom Ewing's hotel at Rosses Point, where I had booked a room, and the moment we opened the door the entire Point went up in a blast of "H'ya, Jems" that could have been, and was, heard in Sligo. Every dangerous influence known in the metropolis there was gathered; and, as the conversation rose to a shattering roar, I thought sadly of my (previous) hermit's existence, and an egg to my tea. That didn't last long, though, it couldn't.

Eventually, and sensibly, the time came for retirement, and I was shown by my host to be the guest chamber and a resting place nine feet long by seven feet wide. It's lucky nobody thought of bringing that bed out into the street, as might easily have happened, for the front wall of the hotel would have had to come with it I sprang into it joyously - and received a painful flesh wound in the small of the back. It was one of those cast iron hot water cisterns again. This time when I put it outside the door, they said afterwards they thought someone had been dropping 20lb weights. Someone had.

Now I regretted the loss of the cistern, for in 15 minutes I found that the nights in Rosses Point are arctic. Rather than recall the cistern, however, I froze. They're lethal, those things.

(To be continued)