“My planet was blown up one morning,” said Arthur, who had found himself quite unexpectedly telling the little man his life story, or at least, edited highlights of it, “that’s why I’m dressed like this, in my dressing gown. My planet was blown up with all my clothes in it, you see. I didn’t realize I’d be coming to a party.”

The little man nodded enthusiastically.

“Later, I was thrown off a spaceship. Still in my dressing gown. Rather than the spacesuit one would normally expect. Shortly after that I discovered that my planet had originally been built for a bunch of mice. You can imagine how I felt about that. I was then shot at for a while and blown up. In fact I have been blown up ridiculously often, shot at, insulted, regularly disintegrated, deprived of tea and recently I crashed into a swamp and had to spend five years in a damp cave.”

“Ah,” effervesced the little man, “and did you have a wonderful time?” Arthur started to choke violently on his drink.

“What a wonderfully exciting cough,” said the little man, quite startled by it, “do you mind if I join you?”

And with that he launched into the most extraordinary and spectacular fit of coughing that caught Arthur so much by surprise that he started to choke violently, discovered he was already doing it and got thoroughly confused. Together they performed a lung-busting duet that went on for fully two minutes before Arthur managed to cough and splutter to a halt.

“So invigorating,” said the little man, panting and wiping tears from his eyes, “what an exciting life you must lead. Thank you very much.”

He shook Arthur warmly by the hand and walked off into the crowd. Arthur shook his head in astonishment.