Inscription:

In the back room

They had a Tasmanian Devil for a pet

100/9573

This is on the back of a posed photo of three respectable Portuguese from the Algarve, at a window. On the drawing Paula has inscribed: “In the back room they had a Tasmanian Devil for a pet”. And the mysterious “100/9573” also in her handwriting.

Sounds almost like an edition number from an enormous print run. A Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial. The joke is that the three Portuguese don’t look like the kind of people who would have such a creature as a pet. On the other hand, what would the kind of people who would have such a creature as a pet look like?