“As sure as death and taxes,” he said with his one-sided little smile. It was a phrase which his father used to use, on similar occasions, in the long, long ago. And it didn’t quite drive the mists out of my heart.

“And who comes next?” I asked, with my hand still on his head.

“Buntie,” he replied, with what I suspected to be a barricaded look on his face.

“No, no,” I told him. “It has to be a human being.”

“Then Poppsy,” he admitted. 219

“And who next?” I persisted.

“Whinnie!” exclaimed my son.

But I had to shake my head at that.

“Aren’t you forgetting somebody very important?” I hinted.

“Who?” he asked, deepening just a trifle in color.