An Encounter With Ferpection

I was awakened early this morning by the ringing of the doorbell. Pausing only to drape my form in a Russian infantry officer's topcoat which I keep near to the bed for that purpose, I stumbled to the door. Outside was a man of Arabic appearance, holding a large bag in one hand and a trowel in the other. 'I've come to do your tiles' he said. Remembrance hit me like a well-aimed potato. Last night, in a drunken and self-important mood, I had made wild and extraordinary claims about the quality of my bathroom tiles to some of the Muted Slughorn's most august patrons, including a well known airline pilot and the wife of a local Tory councillor. Later, in a panic at the thought of my lies being discovered, I had begged the barman for the number of his own decorator, who enriched the lavatories of the Slughorn with fantastical and intriguing tessellations. The barman had smiled in a manner which I am coming to recognise, and told me that it would be arranged.
I showed the artisan to my bathroom, and helped him spread some old sheets over the floor. In no time at all he had my old avocado tiles pulled of the wall, and began to apply his own. As I watched him build up complex and wonderful patterns out of tiny tiles which he pulled casually from his open holdall, skilfully wielding his trowel with the confidence of a true master, I began to suspect his true identity. 'Are you, by any chance, a master tiler from medieval Morocco?' I asked him. He mutely nodded that this was true. Shaking my head at the vagrancies of fortune, I left the room, retiring to my study with a sheaf of periodicals and bottle of sherry.
I was still engrossed in the study of these papers a few hours later when I heard a cry of horror. Rushing to my bathroom, my topcoat flapping around my naked knees, I saw my decorator crouched outside the door in fear. I pushed to door open to see, to my surprise, the bathroom was decorated from floor to ceiling in tile work of the most extraordinary complexity and grace. 'Bravo!' I cried. 'You've done it! My bathroom will be famous from Swansea to Crewe.' He glared at me in anger. 'Foolish boaster' he hissed, 'do you not see? This bathroom is tiled so perfectly, so flawlessly, that it is an affront to God himself. Only he may create perfection.' As he spoke he pulled a tiny brass hammer from his overalls, and approached the polychromatic mosaic work around the base of my bath. He deftly tapped upon a tiny blue tile, as perfect as a jewel, and by bending over and peering at it I could see that he had mazed it with hairline cracks, invisible to all but the closest observer. This action calmed him somewhat, and we knelt to pray together on the dusty sheets. He left very soon after, and would take no money for his work.