“I’m going to tell you a story. There’s a man who is, shall we say . . .”—he drummed his fingers on the table—“a stunning piece of shit. I could enumerate his misdeeds, but you have a business to run and my shoes aren’t meant for standing around in. Suffice it to say, he’s a negligent landowner and in general a brute.” This was so far from a comprehensive list of his father’s worst misdeeds that it was almost incorrect, the understatement so severe as to verge on dishonesty. But
