--Then I made my big mistake. At the time I was nineteen, had long untidy hair, and regarded myself as part of the sixties'` youth counterculture'. As a result, I wanted to appear cool and unconcerned with the incident, so I said, ` How long have you 'been following me?' in the most casual and conversational tone I could manage. I thus appeared to them to be quite familiar with this sort of situation, and it confirmed them in their belief that I was a thoroughly disreputable character.
