conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first three paragraphs for a book with the title 'The Ruffian on the Stair'? Start with the sentence 'The Ruffian on the Stair
  The poem was set in Syria during the Roman Empire, and its narrator is Creon, a worldly-wise soldier-philosopher'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Ruffian on the Stair
  The poem was set in Syria during the Roman Empire, and its narrator is Creon, a worldly-wise soldier-philosopher. Creon relates how Esdras, a naive young provincial scholar, comes up to Antioch in search of a teacher. While listening to the various philosophers in the market-place, Esdras spots Cleoma, a 'lascivious handmaid' of Simeon, a celebrated Magus. Enslaved by Cleoma, Esdras through her finds his way to Simeon, who becomes his guru.
  Esdras soon becomes disillusioned with the Magus, who he sees is a manipulative sensualist, using his powers to dupe rich fools into parting with their money. Part of Simeon the Magus's racket is procuring young men, through drugs and blackmail, to cater for the 'unholy loves' of his wealthy followers. To Esdras's dismay, he learns that the Magus is using his love for Cleoma to groom him for the attentions of Lollius, a rich and foolish Roman sensualist, who's a member of the Magus's circle. Faced with the Magus's machinations, Esdras feels powerless – his attraction to his guru's creature, Cleoma, is too strong – to avoid the loathsome role being prepared for him.
  Rivers goes on in his poem to explain how, meanwhile, the slave Silas, an 'unclean minion' of the Magus, and Cleoma's lover, conspires with other disgruntled dependants of the Magus to kill him, planning to incriminate the hapless Esdras, whom Silas hates on account of his rivalry for Cleoma's favours.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It was agreed, then, that next morning, Saturday, Liliane would take me to Dieppe to look up Bernard Marti, who'd spent VE Day in London with Carrie Bugle's son Philippe, my present host's grandfather. As well as helping out my French, Liliane – a friend of the Marti family – could help smooth down any feathers still ruffled by the visit of Barre-impersonator Ramier, who'd pinched the old man's 1955 London postcard from Philippe Barre. After we'd made our visit in Dieppe, I could go on from there farther south to Niort.
  Once we'd arrived in Dieppe, Liliane led me to the upper flat of a narrow, shabby building off the rattling fish market on the Ile du Pollet in the port's inner basin. Bernard Marti's daughter was a stout lady, just on the wrong side of seventy, and came out on to the landing in response to Liliane's ring at the doorbell. Before she showed any sign of inviting us in, she said that we had to understand that her father was ninety-six years old, and things had come to a pretty pass when people took advantage of a man of that age... She was obviously referring to the Tintin-quiffed conman Ramier's visit, and the affair of the purloined VE Day postcard.
  But Liliane's reassurances, along with the flowers and the Rivesalte, at last mollified the lady to the extent of her inviting us in. On the strict understanding, she was careful to point out, that the visit was to last no more than five minutes, and that she was to be there in the room throughout.
  We were ushered into a stuffy little bedroom, full of hideous modernique French furniture of the last-decade-but-five-or-six. Under the tall, single window was an armchair with a shrunken old man in a jacket and zipped-up pullover in it. His bare skull was blotched and yellow, and the middle ground of the waxen face was occupied boldly by a thick white moustache. The knot-veined, bluish right hand was tapping a Zagazig cigarette-paper carton incessantly on the wooden armrest of the chair. The old soldier turned dim, pale eyes on us, and looked blankly as, uninvited, we sat down on the edge of the bed nearest to him.
  The lady in the doorway shot us a meaningful look, before telling her father that they'd turn up somewhere later, no doubt...
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: ...
  The lady in the doorway shot us a meaningful look, before telling her father that they'd turn up somewhere later, no doubt. The old soldier turned dim, pale eyes on us, and looked blankly as, uninvited, we sat down on the edge of the bed nearest to him. The knot-veined, bluish right hand was tapping a Zagazig cigarette-paper carton incessantly on the wooden armrest of the chair. His bare skull was blotched and yellow, and the middle ground of the waxen face was occupied boldly by a thick white moustache. Under the tall, single window was an armchair with a shrunken old man in a jacket and zipped-up pullover in it.
  We were ushered into a stuffy little bedroom, full of hideous modernique French furniture of the last-decade-but-five-or-six. On the strict understanding, she was careful to point out, that the visit was to last no more than five minutes, and that she was to be there in the room throughout.
  But Liliane's reassurances, along with the flowers and the Rivesalte, at last mollified the lady to the extent of her inviting us in. She was obviously referring to the Tintin-quiffed conman Ramier's visit, and the affair of the purloined VE Day postcard... Before she showed any sign of inviting us in, she said that we had to understand that her father was ninety-six years old, and things had come to a pretty pass when people took advantage of a man of that age. Bernard Marti's daughter was a stout lady, just on the wrong side of seventy, and came out on to the landing in response to Liliane's ring at the doorbell.
  Once we'd arrived in Dieppe, Liliane led me to the upper flat of a narrow, shabby building off the rattling fish market on the Ile du Pollet in the port's inner basin. After we'd made our visit in Dieppe, I could go on from there farther south to Niort. As well as helping out my French, Liliane – a friend of the Marti family – could help smooth down any feathers still ruffled by the visit of Barre-impersonator Ramier, who'd pinched the old man's 1955 London postcard from Philippe Barre.It was agreed, then, that next morning, Saturday, Liliane would take me to Dieppe to look up Bernard Marti, who'd spent VE Day in London with Carrie Bugle's son Philippe, my present host's grandfather
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs? Start with the sentence 'There was expectancy in the air, and I found myself trying to appear unconcerned in the face of the challenging presence of the large, square package in the plastic bag'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: There was expectancy in the air, and I found myself trying to appear unconcerned in the face of the challenging presence of the large, square package in the plastic bag. I felt I'd had enough revelations to be going on with for the time being.
  Reet then paused in her narrative to reach over to the plastic bag and take out the package, which was wrapped round with stout, dirty brown paper and bound with yellowed twine.
  With hesitation in her eyes, Reet handed me the painting, and I smiled, as I fancy someone might smile who's just had a limb blown off, but doesn't immediately take it in. I then gave a sort of croak before reading out the inscription on the little bone plaque at the bottom of the frame.
  In the painting I saw the staircase, leading up to the door – ajar – of the tenant, Madam Life, who wasn't in the picture. Above the landing was the stairhead window, edged with narrow, rectangular panes of alternate crimson and blue, the window modelled on that over the pub in Hackney, where in 1893 the Ruffian, Laurence Victor Pidgeon – the Vickybird – had in real life murdered his employer, Mrs Bella Nye. Rawbeck had held this knowledge, like a sword of Damocles, over the Vickybird's head, until he'd freed himself by cutting the artist's throat in the very same room suggested in the painting I was looking at.
  But above all, I now knew what had lain behind my grandfather's eagerness to recover the painting, after the Vickybird had stolen it from him and sold it to the Paris dealer, Carbonero, in 1899. As I beheld the hatchet face of the Ruffian – the Vickybird – as he stared out, grinning malevolently from the sombre canvas, halfway up the stairs, I understood that the picture cast doubt on my grandfather's paternity of his son – my father – A.H. And I knew why the little boy in the Jersey lane had identified me immediately from the painting, which had lain so long in his grandad's shed. In the painting, one of the Vickybird's eyes was brown and the other green. My search for my grandfather was over.