'You're a monkey.'
Harold has since forgiven me for this impolite utterance. Needless to say, it still embarrasses me a little, even to this day.
'I know,' sighed Harold.
'You know what?'
'That I'm a monkey.'
'Oh.'
The conversation continued on like this for quite a while, I am again embarrassed to admit.
Harold formally introduced himself and then went on to tell me that he was immortal. And for better or worse, I believed him there and then.
In all seriousness I'm not quite sure what made me believe Harold's shortened statement, but I did. He also told me that he could travel through time. This, I will say openly and without shame, I found a little harder to swallow. But the fact of him being a six-foot-four inches tall monkey in a white hand crafted Italian business suit, and given that he had just evaporated into thin air, only to reappear further down the street and bundle me into a dark alley mere moments later, caused me to be prepared to be open to just about anything.
That day was over seventy years ago now. And as I sit before this computer screen, a bright and young ninety-seven year old gentleman of Scottish decent, I am more determined than ever to catalog and document my many adventures through space and time with my best friend Harold.