Last time I bumped into a ragged-trousered philanthropist in the street, I berated him for his dishevelment. Would it not be meet, I suggested, were he to pay more attention to his toilet? I held before his eyes the image of Beau Brummell, as an exemplar of attention to detail in masculine dress. Do you think for one minute, I keened, that Brummell would ever have stepped out of doors wearing ragged trousers?

But Brummell was not a philanthropist, countered the ragged-trousered philanthropist, and he pressed a coin into my palm. I realised he had mistaken me for a mendicant. It is true that my own apparel was somewhat raggedy, but I can admire Beau Brummell without attempting to emulate him.

Here, have your coinage back, I said, I have no need of it.

Ungrateful swine!, shouted the philanthropist, and he slapped my face. The slap was done with his bare hand. Had it been a glove, I would have taken it as a challenge to engage in a duel. As he refused to take back his coin, I tossed it into the gutter.

Let a guttersnipe profit from your philanthropy, I said, rubbing my cheek, and away I pranced, in the bitter sunshine.

At the corner, I paused, and turned, and waited until the ragged-trousered philanthropist was out of sight. Then I hastened back to retrieve the coin from the gutter. Before I could do so, however, an eagle-eyed guttersnipe, attracted by its silvery glint, appeared from nowhere and scooped it up.

I brandished my stick and beat the urchin insensible. I prised the coin from his grasp and then rifled through his filthy pockets to find what treasures lay therein. String, elastic bands, paper clips, a boiled sweet, but no more coinage. I left the guttersnipe, battered and bloody, in the gutter, and went on my way, in the bitter sunshine.

Exercise : The narrator is clearly wallowing in a moral sewer. Describe this sewer, as vividly as you are able, and populate it with other figures, both historical and fictional, who you think are likely to be found there.