"But are you a real saint?" she asked.
The little man flushed.
"Why, of course I am. I'm a patron saint. I'm the patron saint of staircases."
"But I didn't know," said Doris, "that staircases had patron saints."
"They don't," he said. "They have only one."
"I mean," said Doris—"it's frightfully rude, I'm afraid—but I didn't know that they had even one."
He smiled again.
"Very likely not," he said. "Lots of people don't. But they have."
He disappeared once more.
"Baby in Jamaica," he said, "just beginning to fall from the top landing."