"No, it’s not that."

"Then what is it?"

"Number twos."

"I refuse" I said firmly.

"You can’t."

"There’s no need for name calling" I chided.

"I mean you cannot refuse – I have a right to perform unmentionables whenever and wherever I need."

"Nonsense – it is purely at the discretion of whoever is in charge of you at the time."

"If you refuse to help me, Dennis Brent, I will instruct my solicitor to take this matter to the European Court of Human Rights."

"Your threats don’t trouble me, Francois Devine" I said, hoping than my inner shudder at the potential expense and unsavoury publicity didn’t come across.

"A man’s got to poo when a man’s got to poo" he said dramatically.

"Don’t talk absolute rubbish" I told him. "Have some self control."

"How many times have I countersigned your bowel chart?" he asked.

"Once or twice" I mumbled.

"Every day for the last five years. Each morning at precisely the same time I am faced with a generic plastic air-tight container containing a sample of your output and every morning at precisely the same time I grade it and put my name to a score from one to ten. I do this for you without seeking reward and now that I need a small favour I find that my so called colleague and co-habitor is not prepared to… prepared to… would you excuse me a moment?"

I heard what I mistook for a cruise liner signalling her position in heavy fog, saw my shed collapse like a pack of cards and observed a flock of birds fall from the skies with expressions of agony on their faces.

"Pardon me" said Francois Devine. "I think I may have misdiagnosed myself."

"Did you…?" began, unwilling to fully embrace the events on a conscious level.

"I have and I feel better for it."

"I think my life, times and adventures have just reached a new low" I mused. "Perhaps I should’ve stopped last year when I was ahead."

"I won’t be taking you to the European Court of Human Rights" confirmed Francois Devine. "And I think we can resume being colleagues and co-habitors without the threat of legal proceedings."

"Very well" I agreed. We beamed at each other and congratulated ourselves on how sensibly and maturely we as gentlemen behaved. Not for us the knives and alcohol abuse of the lower caste.

"Do you think I could celebrate with a smackerel of something nutritious?" he asked.

"Oh dear" I sighed and readied myself for another battle.

I won’t give you the full details of our debate – suffice it to say he was childish and I was sensible, he was obstinate and juvenile while I was reasoned and eloquent.

"Yes" he cried.

"No" I replied.

"Yes" he bawled.

"No" I told him.

"Yes" he squealed.

"No" I reposted.

And so on. He tried saying yes to the power of infinity but I’m wise to that trick and countered with no to the power of infinity plus one.

All that talk of food had made me hungry so I popped into the kitchen to make myself something to eat. I planned to eat it in front of Francois Devine’s face in the hope that he’d pull himself from the wall and attempt to snatch it from me. It would mean my losing out on a sandwich but I would gain in the long run. I thought long and hard about what Francois Devine would most relish on a sandwich and settled on a bit of everything. I piled high the fillings, sauces, condiments, spreads, rashers, garnishes and peas, topping the whole thing off with slices of bread which, were they left on Salisbury Plain, would be mistaken for a tourist attraction. I sprayed the concoction with bacon fat from Francois Devine’s atomiser and wheeled it in to the drawing room. Almost immediately there was a rumbling noise. Whether it came from Francois Devine himself or my wall I could not say. I do know for a fact that the "MMMMMMMMMMMMMM" definitely came from Francois Devine. Either that or the Luftwaffe had been spotted by the warden.

"I will eat my enormous sandwich in a moment" I said in a loud and theatrical voice. I placed it six feet from Francois Devine’s outstretched hand and wandered away, apparently absent mindedly. "I’ll just go and wash my hands."

I wandered out of the room and heard a groaning, scraping, cracking, crumbling noise. It turned out to be my trousers – the experimental gel had set wrongly again (I would have to see Doctor Flapjack about it ASAP). I set up camp behind the drawing room door, peering through the crack and watching Francois Devine struggle against the forces of bricks and mortar.

I’ve seen Francois Devine trample cars, demolish churches, decapitate statues of war heroes and make a mockery of barbed wire to get to a large sandwich. And yet here he was – perhaps weakened by hunger, perhaps simply defeated by the quality building work of Brent Towers, flailing about like a fat man trapped in a wall. There is literally no need for a simile in this situation – nothing quite sums up the sight of a fat man stuck in a wall quite like the phrase ‘a fat man stuck in a wall’. I could’ve said he was like a mutant cash machine which accepted sandwiches and paid out tedious monographs on irrelevant subjects but that wouldn’t have been as concise or as witty as ‘a fat man stuck in a wall’.

"Dennis Brent?" called Francois Devine after a few minutes of straining.

"Tum ti tum" I hummed as I wandered nonchalantly back into the drawing room. "Ah – Francois Devine – you’re still here. Did you call?"

"I did. I’ve realised something extremely important."

"That being?"

"If I don’t eat that sandwich I shall most probably die."

"And?"

"What do you mean ‘and’? Isn’t that enough?"

"Frankly no."

"Very well, I shall most probably die and decompose all over your drawing room."

"And?"

"What do you mean ‘and’???"

"You’re not having my sandwich until you jolly well get up and take it yourself."

"If I die and decompose in your drawing room, what do you think that will do for the value of this house?"

"Harm is slightly?"

"You can rest assured, Dennis Brent, that if I decompose in your drawing room I will make damned sure to do so as widely as possible. Brent Towers will smell so badly that it will become worthless."

Damn him.