‘Uh, maybe I've got a cracked rib. One of ‘em kicked me when I was down.'

‘Tomorrow we'll get hold of Dr Rumsey. You're both going to need physical exams anyhow.'

‘Donnie ought to have that rib looked at, but I don't need a doctor. Mama, I don't like to be poked at.'

‘You don't have to like it, dear, but as long as you are under my roof, you do have to hold still for it when I think it is necessary. That is not open to argument. But you've met Dr Rumsey before. He delivered you, right in this bed.'

‘Really?'

‘Really. His father was our first family doctor, and the present Dr Rumsey has been my doctor since Alice Virgina was born, and he delivered both of you. His son has just finished his internship, so it could happen that his son will deliver your first baby. Because the Rumseys are Howards, too, and practically members of our family. What have Marian and your father told you about the Ira Howard Foundation?'

‘The Ira what?'

‘I've heard of it,' Donald told me. ‘But just barely. Dad told me to forget what I had heard and wait a couple of years.'

‘I think a couple of years have passed. Priscilla, how would you like to be sixteen, and you, Donald eighteen? Now, I mean. Not two years from now.'

‘Mama, what do you mean?'

I told them what the Foundation is, in a handful of words or less. ‘So a Howard often needs to adjust his birthday to keep from being noticed. We'll discuss it further in the morning; I'm going back to bed. Mama needs the rest - busy day tomorrow. Kiss me goodnight, dears - again.'

‘Yes, Mama. And I'll go back to my bed... and I'm sorry I worried you.'

‘We'll handle the worries. You needn't go back to your bed. Unless you want to.'

‘Really?'

‘Really truly. I do not believe in burning the horse after the barn has been stolen.' (If the first billion little wigglers did not shoot you down, dear, the next billion will never get close to the target. So enjoy it while you can - because, if you're pregnant, we'll have a whole new crop of worries. We haven't discussed the real, utterly practical reason to avoid incest... but you are going to have to have Old Granny Maureen's Horror Lecture on reinforced harmful recessives, the one I've been giving every little while for centuries, seems like.)

I'm not sure whether this is the frying pan or the fire. Not very many minutes ago I was sitting here in this jail, petting Pixel - he had been gone three days and I had been worried about him - and watching a stupid grope opera for lack of anything else to do, when a squad of spooks - well, four - robed and masked, came in, grabbed me, put their usual dog collar on me, and secured me by four leashes, then snapped them to rings in the walls instead of leading me away.

Pixel took one look at them and skittered away. Two of them, one on each side, started shaving the skin behind my ears.

‘What's going on?' I demanded. ‘May one ask?'

‘Hold still. This is for the electrodes. You have to be animated for the ceremony.'

‘What ceremony?'

‘After your trial and execution. Quit wiggling.'

So I wiggled harder and he back-handed me across the face, when four others carne in and suddenly the first four were dead and shoved under my cot. Then they unsnapped my leashes from the walls.

One said quietly, just above a whisper, ‘We're from the Committee for Aesthetic Deletions. Look scared and don't make it too easy for us to lead you out of here.'

Looking scared I could do, with no practice. They took me out into the corridor, on down and past the ‘courtroom' door, then a sharp left and through a freight door onto a loading dock, where I was shoved into a lorry and the door clanged shut. Then it opened again; somebody chucked in a cat. The door slammed shut and the lorry started up with a jerk. I fell down with a cat on top of me.

‘Is that you, Pixel?'

‘Mrrow!' (Don't be silly!)

We're still in the lorry and rolling. Now where was I? Oh, yes - I woke up early from a nightmare in which one of my sons was humping his sister and I was saying, ‘Dear, you really ought not to do that on the front lawn; the neighbours will notice - ‘when the dream woke me and I heaved a sigh of relief; it was just a dream. Then I realised that it had not been all that much a dream; the essence of it was too, too solid flesh - and came wide awake with a shot of adrenalin. Oh, Christ! Oh, Mary's drawers! Donald, did you knock up your sister? Children, I do want to help you... but, if you have let that happen, it won't be easy.

I got up and peed, and sat there and again heard the rhythmic music I had heard in the night... and it had the same effect on me; it turned me on. And I felt better as in all my life I have never been able to feel both horny and depressed at the same time. Had those kids been at it all night?

When the squeaks stopped, I flushed the pot, not having wanted to disturb them until they were through. Then I used the bidet, so that I would not start the day whiffing of rut. I brushed my teeth and gave my face and hair a lick and a promise.

I dug out of my wardrobe an old summer bathrobe of Patrick's that I had confiscated when I gave him a new one for his honeymoon. For Priscilla I found a wrap of mine. And one for me.

Then I tapped on their door. Priscilla called out, ‘Come in, Mama!' She sounded happy.

I opened the door and held out the robes. ‘Good morning, darlings. One for each of you. Breakfast in twenty minutes.'

Priscilla bounced out of bed and kissed me. Donald approached more slowly but did not seem much troubled at being caught in his skin by fierce old Mama. The room reeked even more than 1 remembered.

Something brushed past my legs - Her Serene Highness. She jumped up on the bed and started purring loudly. Priscilla said, ‘Mama, she bumped against the door last night, making a terrible racket, so I got up and let her in. She stayed with us a short while, then she jumped down, and demanded that I open the door again. So I did, and closed it behind her. It could not have been a half-hour before she was banging on the door again. This time I ignored her. Uh... we were busy.'

‘She resents closed doors,' I explained. ‘Any closed door. I leave mine ajar and she spent the rest of the night with me. Or most of it. Hmm - She's Susan's cat and you have Susan's room. Do you want to move? Otherwise she is likely to wake you at any hour.'

‘No, I'll just train Donnie to get up and hold the door for her.'

‘Now see here, Slugger -‘

I left.

I stirred up muffins and popped a Pyrex pan of them into the oven on a six -minute cycle. While the muffins were baking I set up baked eggs wrapped in bacon in another muffin pan. When the oven pinged, I transferred the muffins to the warmer, reset the cycle and put in the bacon and eggs. While they cooked, I poured orange juice and milk, and started the samovar to cycle. That left me time to set the breakfast table with happy mats and gaudy Mexican crockery - a cheerful table.

Priscilla appeared. ‘Donnie will be right down. May I help?'

‘Yes, dear. Go out into the back yard and cut some yellow roses for that bowl in the middle. Make it quick; I am about to serve the plates. Polly Down off that table! Take her with you, please. She knows better but she always crowds the limits.'

I served the plates and sat down just as Donald appeared. ‘May I help?'

‘Yes, you can keep the cat off the table.'

‘I mean, really help.'

‘You'll find that a full-time job.'

Thirty minutes later I was working on my second cup of tea while Priscilla served another pan of muffins and more bacon, and opened another jar of Knott's Berry Farm marmalade. I was feeling as contented as Princess Polly looked. When you come right down to it, children and cats are more fun than stocks, bonds, and other securities. I would get these two married (but not to each other!) and then it would be soon enough for Maureen, the Hetty Green of the fast new world, to tackle the Harriman empire, force it to stand and deliver. ‘Polly! Get out of that marmalade! Donald, you are supposed to be watching that cat.'