"Not for ten years, dear. I'll be here when you want me, so why don't you go play on the balcony? I've got to get Daddy off and give Ralph his bath."
"I'll bathe him," Sophie volunteered. "You help, Howie. We can make like we're young."
"Don't drop him," Kate warned.
"Clean up the bathroom afterward," added Bozzy.
"Yes, sir," said Howard, for the first time in his life.
The children left, and Kate came close to pour Bozzy his cup of Daystart. He slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed convulsively.
"Darling!" she said, stroking his bald spot. "You're positively trembling!"
"Wouldn't you be, if you had to take over from somebody you like as well as I like Mr. Kojac? And for no good reason, except he's seventy-five and I'll soon be forty."
Kate pushed away from him, frowning. "Sometimes you're so silly, it scares me. You know perfectly well that if you don't take Mr. Kojac's job, someone else will. He'd rather have it in your hands than in a stranger's, and I'd rather live on his income than on a laborer's. So stop moping and drink your Daystart, while I call a cab."
No help in that quarter, Bozzy decided as she left. All Kate could think of was that she'd soon be the wife of a big-shot: the manager—that is, controls setter—of a furniture factory.