‘Rather too fussy for my taste,’ said the boy. ‘And more a winter blend, I would have thought. Would you like me to name both brand and supplier?’

Professor Merlin nodded.

‘Crawford’s Imperial, from Cox’s Tobacco Emporium, High Street, Bradford.’

‘Incredible.’ Professor Merlin wrung his slender hands. ‘Even down to the hint of Grad. The boy is a gemus.

‘Poo,’ said Norman, who wasn’t impressed.

‘It was rather clever,’ I said, ‘and in a poem too.’

‘Poems are poofy,’ said Norman.

I noticed now that the professor’s snuffbox was sliding into the Doveston’s pocket. The professor noticed this too and snatched it back. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

The Doveston grinned. ‘That’s a form you owe me.

The professor made mystical motions with his hands and produced a coin from thin air. The Doveston took it, bit it, examined it, slipped it in his pocket and grinned a little more.

‘Fiddle dee fiddle dum.’ Professor Merlin bowed. ‘You have impressed me as ever, my boy. So what have you come to see?’

‘Norman would like a look at the dog-faced boy.’

‘I would,’ said Norman. ‘I want to see him biting the heads off live chickens.’

‘Well you can’t,’ said the professor. ‘Doggart has been taken to the vet’s.’

‘As if,’ said Norman.

‘No, he truly has. And you’re wrong about the description, Berty. He’s not a dog-faced boy. He’s a boy-faced dog.’

‘As if’ said Norman once more.

‘I kid thee not.’ Professor Merlin crossed his heart. ‘The body of an Alsatian dog and the head of a boy. I purchased him several months ago in this very borough, from a chap called Jon Peru Joans.’

I looked at the Doveston.

And he looked back at me.

‘So why’s he at the vet’s?’ asked Norman.

‘Ah,’ said the professor. ‘An embarrassing incident occurred today. We had been invited to lunch by the lady mayoress, who’d expressed a desire to meet Doggart. We arrived at her house somewhat early and her secretary informed us that she was still upstairs taking a shower. We were sent to wait in the lounge, but Doggart somehow got off his lead and ran upstairs. The bathroom door had been left open and the lady mayoress was still in the shower. She was just bending down to pick up the soap when Doggart entered. He must have misunderstood the situation, because the next thing you know he—’

‘No!’ said Norman. ‘He never did!’

‘He did. It’s the nature of dogs, you see. He couldn’t help himself. The lady mayoress demanded that Doggart be taken off to the vet.’

‘To be destroyed?’

‘No,’ said the professor. ‘To have his paw-nails clipped. We’ve been invited back again for supper.’

We all looked at each other and then began to laugh. These were, after all, the 1950s and Political Correctness was still many years away.

No-one, of course, would dare to tell a joke like that nowadays.

‘So, what have you got?’ asked Norman. ‘Anything worth seeing?’ Professor Merlin golden-grinned. ‘You really are a very rude little boy, aren’t you?’ he said.

Norman nodded. ‘Very. That’s one of the benefits of having a dad who runs a sweetie shop.’

‘Ah, privilege.’ Professor Merlin made a wistful face. ‘So, what can I show you? Ah yes, indeedy-do. I know just the very thing.’

And with that said he turned upon a merry heel and led us across the great circle towards his caravan. We shuffled after the curious gent, the Doveston whistling and grinning away, Norman secretively unwrapping Gooble’s Gob Gums in the pocket of his brown shopkeeper’s coat and sneaking them into his mouth and me scratching at the family of ticks that had recently made their nest in my navel.

Perhaps this had me thinking about families, because, I chanced to wonder whether one of the straining hirsute gypsy women might be Norman’s wayward mum.

‘Here we go,’ said the professor as we approached a particularly grand caravan. It was a glorious antique affair, its sides decorated with the swirls and flourishes of the Romany persuasion in golds and silvers and pearly pastels. The words ‘PROFESSOR MERLIN’S GREATEST SHOW OFF EARTH’ were writ in letters big, and elephants and ostriches and dancing girls and jugglers were painted on in rich and dashing fashion.

‘Gaudy,’ said Norman, munching on a sweetie.

‘Inside now, come on.’ We pressed together up the steps and I pushed open the door. As I looked inside, I recalled the words of Howard Carter, who, having chiselled a little hole into the tomb of the boy king and shone his torch through it, was asked what he could see. ‘Wonderful things,’ said Howard. ‘I see wonderful things.’

We bundled into the professor’s caravan.

‘Sit down. Sit down.’ And we sat.

On the walls were many posters of circuses and sideshows. Adverts for incredible performances and impossible feats. But these were not the wonderful things. The wonderful things were brass contraptions. Inexplicable Victorian mechanisms consisting of whirling ball governors and clicking chains, each puffing and turning and moving and busily doing something or other, although just what, it was impossible to say.

‘What’s all this old toot?’ asked Norman.

‘The work of another age,’ smiled the professor. ‘A distant technology.’

‘Yeah, but what do they do?’

‘They don’t do anything, Norman. They don’t do, they simply are.

Norman shrugged and munched some more.

‘Refreshments,’ said the professor, pouring lemonade into tall green glasses. ‘And fags too. Name your favourites.’

‘You won’t have them,’ said Norman.

Professor Merlin handed out the lemonade. ‘Try me,’ he said.

‘MacGuffin’s Extra Longs.’

‘Easy,’ said Professor Merlin, producing one from thin air.

Norman took and examined it. ‘Good trick,’ he said, sulkily.

‘Edwin?’

‘I’m easy,’ I said. ‘Anything.’

‘Make it hard.’

‘All right.’ I thought for a moment. ‘I’d like to try a Byzantium.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ said the Doveston. ‘Except you can only buy them in Greece.

‘One each then.’ The professor snapped his fingers and we took the cigarettes. They were the genuine article and we hastened to light them up.

‘I’d like one of those as well,’ said Norman.

‘Well, you can’t have one. But’ — Professor Merlin reached over to a nifty little side table, crafted from an elephant’s foot, and took up a small and dainty box — ‘I’ve something else I think you will like.’

Norman puffed upon his cigarette.

‘Sweeties,’ said the professor, turning the box towards him. ‘This is a very special little box with very special sweeties.’

‘Give us them,’ said Norman.

Professor Merlin glittered out another grin. ‘It’s a very beautiful box, isn’t it? The tanned hide has been so perfectly prepared. The craftsmanship is exquisite.’

‘What about the sweeties?’ Norman asked.

‘You hold on to the box and help yourself and while you do, I will recount to you a tale that I hope will make your visit worth while.’

‘I’d rather have seen the dog-boy.’ Norman wrestled the lid from the box and got stuck into the sweeties.

‘I have been in the showman’s trade for many many years,’ said Professor Merlin, settling himself back into a throne-like chair all wrought from bones and buckles. ‘And I think I can say that, if it’s there to be seen, I’ve seen it. I have travelled all over this world of ours and visited many strange places. If I have heard rumours of some remarkable performer or human oddity, I have followed up these rumours. Tracked these rumours to their source. And I am proud to say that I have exhibited some of the greatest artistes of this or any age.

‘But, and it is a big but, every showman dreams that one day he will find THE BIG ONE. The most exotic, the most wonderful, the biggest greatest crowd-puller that there has ever been. Barnum found it with General Tom Thumb, but for most of us the search goes on.