PT interrupted F’s PhD supervision with a question.

“Are these pens yours?” he asked me. “Did you leave them behind when you moved offices?”

There were three pens in total: a beautiful dark blue-marbled fountain pen; the striped wooden roller ball that OC had given me as a present in the late 1980s; and a boring biro. I could tell that PT was hoping that I’d say that the first two weren’t mine.

“You can keep the biro if you like” I replied. The look on his face revealed his deep disappointment in my answer.