"Did you make a wish, Timmy?"
"Sure, Mom."
"Helen, honey—Tim knows that wishing when you blow out the candles is kid stuff."
"And what is he but an eleven-year-old kid?"
"He's too smart to believe in wishing, honey. Smarter than his old man, eh, Tim?"
"I'll never be as smart as you, Dad."
"That's my boy! But you don't kid me." Jerry turned to Phil and Clancey, feigning indignation. "You know what happened the other day? I brought home an old design that I dug out of the files and wanted to look over—a helical gravity conveyer—and when Tim saw it spread out on the table he said, 'That's the curve I was just reading about.' Now how did that little so-and-so know enough to call it a curve? I figured he was bluffing and got him to show me where he read about it, and the brat showed me all right—in one of my old college textbooks! Of course I only had to ask a few questions to find out that the college texts are far beyond him, but imagine him dipping into them on his own and getting anything out of them at all! How about that, young man? Explain yourself."
Timmy hesitated, his eyes dark with uncertainty.
"You said I could," he blurted defensively. "Remember? Remember I asked you one day and you said—"