'I think they are all in the pool, dear.'

'So.' Jerry resumed that nervous drumming. Suddenly there appeared in the air in front of our host, seated on a diving board that jutted out of nowhere, a young female. She was in bright sunlight although the room we were in was in cool shadow. Drops of water sprinkled on her. She faced Jerry, which placed her back toward me. 'Hi, Pip-squeak.'

'Hi, Daddy. Kiss kiss.'

'In a pig's eye. When was the last time I spanked you?'

'My ninth birthday. When I set fire to Aunt Minnie. What did I do now?'

'By the great golden gawdy greasy gonads of God, what do you mean by leaving that vulgar, bawdy, pornic program running in the family room?'

'Don't give me that static, Daddy doll; I've seen your books.'

'Never mind what I have in my private library; answer my question.'

'I forgot to turn it off, Daddy. I'm sorry.'

'That's what the cow said to Mrs Murphy. But the fire burned on. Look, my dear, you know you are free to use the controls to suit yourself. But when you are through, you must put the display back the way you found it. Or, if you don't know how. you must put it back to zero for the default display.'

'Yes, Daddy. I just forgot.'

'Don't go squirming around like that; I'm not through chewing you out. By the big brass balls of Koshchei, where did you get that program?'

'At campus. It was an instruction tape in my tantric yoga class.'

'"Tantric yoga"? Swivel hips, you don't need such a course. Does your mother know about this?'

Katherine moved in smoothly: 'I urged her to take it, dear one. Sybil is talented, as we know. But raw talent is not I enough; she needed tutoring.'

'So? I'll never argue with your mother on this subject, so I withdraw to a previously prepared position. That tape. How did you come by it? You are familiar with the applicable laws concerning copyrighted material; we both remember the hooraw over that Jefferson Starship tape -'

'Daddy, you're worse than an elephant! Don't you ever forget anything?'

'Never, and much worse. You are warned that anything you say may be taken down in writing and held against you at another time and place. How say you?'

'I demand to see an attorney!'

'Oh, so you did pirate it!'

'Don't you wish I had! So you could gloat. I'm sorry, Daddy, but I paid the catalog fee, in full, in cash, and the campus library service copied it for' me. So there. Smarty.'

'Smarty yourself. You wasted your money.'

'I don't think so. I like it.'

'So do I. But you wasted your money. You should have asked me for it.'

'Huh!'

'Gotcha! I thought at first you had been picking locks in my study or working a spell on 'em. Pleased to hear that you were merely extravagant. How much?'

'Uh... forty-nine fifty. That's at student's discount.'

'Sounds fair; I paid sixty-five. All right. But if it shows up on your semester billing, I'll deduct it from your allowance.

Just one thing, sugar plum - I brought two nice people home, a lady and a gentleman. We walk into the parlor. What had been the parlor. And these two gentlefolk are faced with the entire Kama Sutra, in panting, quivering color. What do you think of that?'

'I didn't mean to.'

'So we'll forget it. But it is never polite to shock people, especially guests, so let's be more careful next time. Will you be at dinner?'

'Yes. If I can be excused early and run, run, run. Date, Daddy.'

'What time will you be home?'

'Won't. All-night gathering. Rehearsal for Midsummer Night. Thirteen covens.'

He sighed. 'I suppose that I should thank the Three Crones that you are on the pill.'

'Pill shmill. Don't be a cube, Daddy; nobody ever gets pregnant at a Sabbat; everybody knows that.'

'Everybody but me. Well, let us offer thanks that you are willing to have dinner with us.' Suddenly she shrieked as she fell forward off the board. The picture followed her down.

She splashed, then came up spouting water. 'Daddy! You pushed me!'

'How could you say such a thing?' he answered in self-righteous tones. The living picture suddenly vanished.

Katie Farnsworth said conversationally, 'Gerald keeps trying to dominate his daughter. Hopelessly, of course. He should take her to bed and discharge his incestuous yearnings. But they are both too prissy for that.'

'Woman, remind me to beat you.'

'Yes, dearest. You wouldn't have to force her. Make your intentions plain and she will burst into tears and surrender. Then both of you will have the best time of your lives. Wouldn't you say so, Margrethe?'

'I would say so. '

By then I was too numb to be shocked by Margrethe's words.

'Dinner was a gourmet's delight and a social confusion. It was served in the formal dining hall, i.e., that same family room with a different program controlling the hollow grams. The ceiling was higher, the windows were tall, evenly spaced, framed by floor-length drapes, 'and they looked out on formal gardens.

One piece of furniture wheeled itself in, and was not a hollow gram - or not much so. It was a banquet table that (so far as I know) was - in itself, pantry, stove, icebox - all of a well-equipped kitchen. That's a conclusion, subject to refutation. All I can say is that I never saw a servant and never saw our hostess do any work. Nevertheless her husband congratulated her on her cooking - as well he might, and so did we.

Jerry did a little work; he carved a roast (prime rib, enough for a troop of hungry Boy Scouts) and he served the plates, serving them at his place. Once a plate was loaded, it went smoothly around to the person for whom it was intended, like a toy train on a track - but there was no train and no track. Machinery concealed by hollow grams? I suppose so. But that simply covers one mystery with another.

(I learned later that a swank Texas household in that world would have had human servants conspicuously in sight. But Jerry and Katie had simple tastes.)

There were six of us at the table, Jerry at one end, Katie at the other; Margrethe sat on Jerry's right, his daughter Sybil on his left; I was at the right of my hostess, and at her left was Sybil's young man, her date. This put him opposite me, and I had Sybil on my right.

The young man's name was Roderick Lyman Culverson III; he did not manage to catch my name. I have long suspected that the male of our species, in most cases, should be raised in a barrel and fed through the bung-hole. Then, at age eighteen, a solemn decision can be made: whether to take him out of the barrel, or to drive in the bung.

Young Culverson gave me no reason to change my opinion - and I would have voted to drive in the bung.

Early on, Sybil made clear that they were at the same campus. But he seemed to be as much a stranger to the Farnsworths as he was to us. Katie asked, 'Roderick, are you an apprentice witch, too?'

He looked as if he had sniffed something nasty, but Sybil saved him from having to answer such a crude question. 'Mothuh! Rod received his athame ages ago.'

'Sorry I goofed,' Katie said tranquilly. 'Is that a diploma you get when you finish your apprenticeship?'

'It's a sacred knife, Mama, used in ritual. It can be used to -'

'Sybil! There are gentiles present.' Culverson frowned at Sybil, then glared at me. I thought how well he would look with a black eye but I endeavored to keep my thoughts out of my face.

Jerry said, 'Then you're a graduate warlock, Rod?'

Sybil broke in again. 'Daddy! The correct word is -'

'Pipe down, sugar plum! Let him answer for himself. Rod?'

'That word is used only by the ignorant -'

'Hold it! I am uninformed on some subjects, and then I seek information, as I am now doing. But you don't sit at my table and call me ignorant. Now can you answer me without casting asparagus?'