‘Call me Ruby,’ he said, big-toothed smile spreading all across his florid, cherubic face, a large gold tooth twinkling like an early morning sunburst. Katie and I looked at each other. Ruby? we thought. How can you trust a house agent who calls himself Ruby? ‘My name is actually Rueben, Rueben Ball,’ he explained, ‘but everybody has called me Ruby ever since I was no taller than a grasshopper on your knee.’
Ruby?We might have called him Ruby to his face, and his proper name might be Rueben Ball, but privately we always called him Rubber Ball, because that is exactly what he was like. No more than five foot two inches tall, he was equally as rotund, like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee rolled into one. And he did not walk, he bounced, as if he has springs on the balls of his feet – boing-bo
