Lou was a big-bodied man , and like so many big-bodied men , he had small hands and feet that contrasted strangely with rest of his huge frame . He moved lightly , even gracefully , and when required , with great speed. He seemed to fill the long tunnels under Central station as he shouldered a full mail bag , or hauled not one , but several four-wheeled trolleys full of the bags , ready to be taken up in the lifts and delivered to the waiting mail vans on the country trains.

The thick curly hair on a large head set on a bull neck , itself partly obscured by several chins , heightened the impression of solidity . His face was round and smooth and seemed always lit up by big , jovial smiles . Both his physical size and the friendly openness of his nature commanded great respect among us on the mail team .

Down those tunnels one could hear his booming voice , telling wildly vulgar jokes , accompanied by the raucous laughter of the team that he worked with . But that was only while he was in movement and at work . At all other times his voice was soft and quite confidential . Even in the breaks for the steaming cups of railway tea that were easily available to us , his commanding presence held the rest of the workers in quiet subservience. There in the rest area he spoke as if he were speaking to each of us individually and confidentially , making us feel that we were the important part of the conversation even if we contributed little . However , I never felt that he would make a good public speaker . On the rostrum he would have looked bulkily out of place , an elephant balancing on a ball , but his softer voice could fascinate when talking to a few only.

He was not a bully . No-one who had seen him pick up an injured worker and rush him to the underground ambulance station could have ever thought that he would physically maltreat anyone . But his strength was not something to be ignored . As he leaned against one of the metal stanchions that supported that underground area , it seemed that the strength lay in him , not in the steel .

He could use that strength for other purposes . One week , a new man joined the mail team and decided to assert his dominance . Nobody bothered all that much with his jibes and sneers , until one day he made a grossly offensive remark about Lou, who was standing on a loading platform . Within seconds , Lou had dropped from the platform , taken five paces and gripped the man's shirtfront . An easy one-armed movement , and the man was pinned to a stanchion , his feet dangling above the floor .

What Lou said to him we could not hear , but the man turned pale , and when lowered quite gently to the floor he slunk away into a corner and sat alone , no doubt very conscious of the amusement the rest of us felt . He left the job next day .

I was working there as a temporary job only, to earn enough to help me through the university course I was undertaking. All good experience in life too , for a youngster who had left school only to go into another school type situation.

I was attracted to Lou from the first . I myself am a big person , and I envied him his ability to combine size and strength with grace , a quality I do not possess . Normally I would have suspected such open-countenanced hearty frankness as being too good to be true . But I soon felt aware that his heartiness was not so much an attempt at gaining advantage for himself , but part of a deep self confidence that spread itself to you as well . He told many stories , some of which I considered far -fetched , yet upon deeper consideration they rang true . Many of this stories were self-derogatory , highlighting his own weaknesses ; many were about rough , crude situations he had encountered and many had a strong sexual bias . Yet all his stories had an element of broad humour that I found irresistible .

So I cultivated his acquaintance , and through the circumstances of the job , got to know him well . The mail room work was not hard , and not constantly time-consuming , in that truckloads of bags would come in in a rush , be transferred and then there would be longish gaps of nothing doing . I was always willing to listen to him talk , and his many stories fascinated me and kept me laughing .

At the same time he seemed to have taken a liking to me , as he was fond of words , and I was so much better read than the other members of the team. He had a wide range of knowledge of all sorts of strange matters , being the sort of fellow who could call upon a whole series of unrelated facts. Our conversations would diverge widely into science , politics and religion , and many times we would thrash out for a long time the exact meanings of a word usage or the implications of a statement . He never criticised the lack of education among others of the team .

Then one day I discovered another of his accomplishments. I was walking up to join a group of which he was the centre , and heard him engaged in magician's patter while he busily sawed away with a pocket knife at a cloth-wrapped finger . Blood gradually stained the cloth , and then at last with a flourish he whipped away the covering to reveal a totally unharmed finger . It was not the most outstanding piece of sleight of hand that he could perform , and he demonstrated some of his repertoire of tricks later to me in private audience . He enjoyed my naivety.

"I've found it useful , " he said of his ability , and when I asked had he ever tried stage work , he scoffed . I pressed him as to why this was so and he grinned even more widely.

"In making a few quid on the side . You've got to remember that there's one born every minute . I stick by that principle and it pays -- not a lot mind you , but it pays .

He continued confidentially.

" I'm not going to show you how to take fivers off people , you with the milk still on your chin , but you'd be surprised how much profit you can make just with two bob bits in a bar . Now , lend me two bob ."

I passed over the two shilling piece and he retrieved a matchbox from his pocket .

" Now watch carefully , " he said , tapping one end of the box .

" This is the bottom of the top of the box , right ? "

I nodded and he inverted the box .

"And this is is the top of the bottom of the box " . He inverted it a couple of times again and placed the coin on the end .

" Now which end has the coin on it ? "

Without hesitation I gave what I considered to be the correct answer, and he looked surprised.

" Oh I should have known you'd be too clever . You picked it . Or you've seen it before . "

He swept the coin off the box and , over my protestations of innocence pressed it back into my hand. He would not accept my vehement claims , and it was not for some time that I suddenly became suspicious , and drew the coin out of my pocket again . It was not two shillings , but a penny . We laughed together .

He showed me a few others of his sleight of hand tricks , all of them involving money , and mostly to do with betting in pubs or the racecourse . He was a wizard at tossing a coin -- he could toss whichever you asked for , heads or tails .

He did not reveal his bigger scams , because as he said , he mostly worked them with a partner and it would not be fair on the partner . He did relate a big confidence trick that involved the letting of a non-existent flat to a sucker from out of town , but otherwise he remained silent about his bigger deals. I began to assume that he worked in the mail room for pocket money and an air of legitimacy rather than from need .

I spent a lot of informative hours with him and I was sorry to see the last of him when my holiday job came to an end and I returned to my studies . He was the bright side of an otherwise rather demeaning job.

I forgot about him until some years later , when I was heading into town for dinner and a show . I was aiming for a small downstairs restaurant that I enjoyed , when suddenly a great bulk loomed before me , and a hand grasped my arm .

It was a very well dressed Lou , who held me in conversation for some time , asking about my successes in study .I was able to tell him that I now had a permanent job and was reasonably flush with money , and that I was off for a meal. That fitted his plans exactly , and he suggested that I accompany him and his companion to a somewhat more expensive restaurant than I had intended to eat at . Without a lot of hesitation , I agreed.

Lou was in top form that night . His stories were funnier than ever , and now and then his small quiet companion would add a droll tale in a quietly humorous way. The food was excellent , the wine was equally so , and I thoroughly enjoyed talking over old times , expanding under Lou's assiduous interest in my burgeoning career.

But all good things come to an end , and we all had appointments , so Lou called for the check. As the waiter brought it , the companion said , " This is on me " .

"No . No , " Lou protested , "you are both my guests " .

A gentle bickering began until I also felt constrained to offer to pay , despite the size of the bill .

This was immediately denounced , then Lou was smitten with an idea.

"Look , why don't we each put in an agreed amount of cash , toss coins , and the odd man out pays the bill and keeps the change ."

The amount that was suggested was high , but much less than the total bill might have cost me , so I agreed.

We tossed , and Lou was the odd man out .

"My lucky night " he grunted as we left the restaurant and went our ways , after a hearty farewell.

As I walked to the theatre I thought of all the stories Lou had told me in the past , and then I remembered two things. He always worked with a companion , and he was adept at tossing whatever he wished the coin to fall . Probably the companion was equally skilful. If each tossed a different result , one of them must always be the odd man out .

But then as Lou had assured me in the past, I was too intelligent to be caught by a simple trick like that .

I wonder........