"You have, too," repeated Richard.
Bobby fell silent under that assertion and tried to remember when anybody had ever given him presents. He could recall no such occasion. Then an explanation came to him.
"P'raps," he suggested timidly, "you only have birthdays when you have fathers and mothers and things like that."
"Everybody has birthdays," said Richard from the lofty peak of his superior years.
Bobby again remained silent and Richard, to add the final, crushing blow, gave further information.
"Everybody has fathers and mothers, some time."
"P'raps I'm not big enough yet to have fathers and mothers and birthdays. How big will I have to be?"
Richard snorted in derision.
"They have you," he said and turned his attention to straightening out the curls from his pigs' tails.
Bobby did not understand, but felt that somehow he was in the wrong, and he went off a ways by himself and took the first comforting bite out of his other apple, carefully choosing the side with the most red on it.