“No,” I said wearily. I had the beginnings of a headache.

“Can you imagine any artist of talent, ability and imagination painting that pathetic little watercolour?”

“No,” I said. I was tired, but not too tired to know that I was speaking the truth.

“Then I think we can end out aesthetic discussion there, don’t you?”

I nodded.

The burglar got up and walked towards the dining table. He picked up a cloth sack and started putting a few of my antique items – a bust, a clock, a crystal statue, a metronome, a copper lamp and a barometer – into it. Then he stood in the middle of my living room floor and started pulling the stacked paintings free from their frames. Once they were all done, he rolled the canvasses up together and stuffed them into the bag, which he then swung over his shoulder and picked up his sawn-off cue and stuck it through a belt loop.

Then he did something inexplicable. He took the roll of tape out of his trouser pocket, tore off a large strip and stuck it over my mouth. He then turned and made his way into the kitchen. I heard him go out of the back door. From the street, I heard the faint clunk of a car door, then silence. A few seconds later he was back.

“Sorry about the tape,” he said, “but I couldn’t risk you shouting for help. Nothing personal.”

I nodded that I understood.

He then crossed to the wall and took down the Embden watercolour. He put it on the floor and stamped down hard on it. The glass cracked and the painting scrunched and tore beneath his boot. At that moment I wanted to kill him.

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, then gently lifted the painting by its frame. A torn piece of the painting protruded from the front of the frame. He moved his free hand and a lighter flared. I struggled to get free.

“This isn’t personal either,” he said, looking at me squarely. “I’m doing the world a favour.”

He touched the flame to the painting and it caught immediately, bursting into flame. He leaned the frame of the burning artwork against the wall opposite me and I saw my favourite picture slowly crumble to black ash pieces.

“Here endeth the last lesson,” he said. “If you have principles, then live by them and act on them. If we all did that, there’d never be another war; there’d be no more hatred, no more negativity, no more shit. Art would be worth something and it’d be a beautiful world.” He paused. “Then I’d seriously think about taking up painting.”

He walked towards the kitchen. At the door, he turned back to look at me.

“But I wouldn’t paint landscapes and I wouldn’t use watercolours,” he said.

Then he was gone.