He looked at Doris and nodded his head.
"It was when I was a small boy," he said, "as small as your little brother; and that's why I grew up crooked and deformed. I was very unhappy about it. It was thousands of years ago. But I can still remember how unhappy I was. I used to watch the other children playing games, and when I grew up I watched the men go hunting. And I had to stay at home, and the women despised me; and at last I died, and then I saw how silly I had been."
"Why had you been silly?" asked Doris.
"Well, I'd wasted the whole of my life, you see, thinking about the staircase and how miserable I was; and so when the good Lord God asked me what I wanted to do next, there was hardly anything that I could turn my hand to. But I told you I was lucky, and so I was, for as it happened I had a great idea; and that was to try and save as many children as I could from being as miserable as I had been. Of course, I couldn't expect much of a job, seeing how I'd thrown away all my chances, so I asked the good Lord God if He would allow me to look after the world's staircases."
He disappeared again.
"Been to Port Jacobson," he said. "Well, the good Lord God thought that it was rather a fine idea; and so He laid His hand upon me and gave me a new name; and my new name was St Uncus."
"Shall I have a new name too?" asked Doris.
St Uncus beamed.
"Why, of course," he said. "Everybody has a new name, only it generally depends, to a certain extent, upon what they did with their old ones."
Doris thought for a moment.