We met at the foot of the stairs. That is to say, he paused in his stroll long enough to fix me with a beady eye of disdain before waddling on to his destination -- which I did not stop to find out. There are eleven steps into our cellar, and I touched about three of them on my way upstairs to report to my wife that there was a skunk in the basement. "You don't have to shout," she said. Clearly she did not appreciate the gravity of the situation...