"Why can't it be? The most unlikely things do happen, Ira there is nothing so unlikely as a baby. But it's true that I've always watched where I put my feet...and never fought when I could duck out...and when I did have to fight, I always fought dirty. If I had to fight, I wanted him to be dead instead of me. So I tried to arrange it that way. Not luck. Or not much, anyway." Lazarus blinked thoughtfully. "I've never argued with the weather. Once a mob wanted to lynch me. I didn't try to reason with them; I just put a lot of miles between me and them as fast as I could and never went back there."

"That's not in any of your memoirs."

"Lots of things not in my memoirs. Here comes chow."

The door dilated, a dining table for two glided in, positioned itself as the chairs separated for it, and started unfolding to serve. The technicians approached quietly and offered unnecessary personal service. Weatheral said, "Smells good. Do you have any eating rituals?'

"Eh? Praying or such? No."

"Not that sort. Such as- Say one of my executives eats with me: I won't let him discuss business at the table. But if you will permit, I would like to continue this conversation."

"Certainly, why not? As long as we stick to subjects that don't rile the stomach. Did you ever hear what the priest told the old maid?"

Lazarus glanced at the technician at his elbow. "Perhaps not now. I think this shorter one is female and she just might know some English. You were saying?"

"I was saying that your memoirs are incomplete. Even if you are determined to go through with dying, won't you consider granting me and your other descendants the rest of your memoirs? Simply talk, tell us what you've seen and done. Careful analysis might teach us quite a lot. For example, what did happen at that Families Meeting of 2012? The minutes don't tell much."

"Who cares now, Ira? They're all dead. It would be my version without giving them a chance to answer back. Let sleeping dogs bury their own dead. Besides, I told you my memory was playing tricks. I've used Andy Libby's hypno- encyclopedic techniques-and they're good-and also learned tier storage for memory I didn't need every day, with keying words to let a tier cascade when I did need it, like a computer, and I have had my brain washed of useless memories several times in order to clear those file drawers for new data-and still it's no good. Half the time I can't remember where I put the book I was reading the night before, then waste a morning looking for it-before I remember that that book was one I was reading a century ago. Why won't you leave an old man in peace?"

"All you have to do is to tell me to shut up, sir. But I hope you will not. Granted that memory is imperfect, nevertheless you were eyewitness to thousands of things the rest of us are too young to have seen. Oh, I'm not asking you to reel off a formal autobiography covering all your centuries. But you might reminisce about anything you care to talk about. For example, there is no record anywhere of your earliest years. I-and millions of others-would be extremely interested in whatever you remember of your boyhood."

"What is there to remember? I spent my boyhood the way every boy does-trying to keep my elders from finding out what I was up to."

Lazarus wiped his mouth and looked thoughtful. "On the whole I was successful. The few times I was caught and clobbered taught me to be more careful next time-keep my mouth shut more and not make my lies too complicated. Lying is one of the fine arts, Ira, and it seems to be dying out."

"Really? I had not noticed any diminution."

"I mean as a fine art. There are still plenty of clumsy liars, approximately as many as there are mouths. Do you know the two most artistic ways to lie?"

"Perhaps I don't but I would like to learn. Just two?"

"So far as I know. It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth-but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it...but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

"I must have been twelve, thirteen years old before I got that one down pat. Learned it from my maternal Grampaw; I take after him quite a lot. He was a mean old devil. Wouldn't go inside a church or see a doctor-claimed that neither doctors nor preachers know what they pretend to know. At eighty-five he could crack nuts with his teeth and straight-arm a seventy-pound anvil by its horn. I left home about then and never saw him again. But the Families' Records say that he was killed in the Battle of Britain during the bombing of London, which was, some years after."

"I know. He's my ancestor, too, of course, and I'm named for him, Ira Johnson."* (* (1) Ira Johnson was less than eighty at the time the Senior claims (elsewhere) to have left home. Ira Johnson was- himself a Doctor of Medicine. How long he practiced, and whether or not he ever let another Doctor of Medicine attend him,-are not known. J.F.45th

(2) Ira Howard-Ira Johnson-This appears to be a chance coincidence of given names at a time when Biblical names were common. Families' genealogists have been unable to trace any consanguinity. J.F.45th)

"Why, sure enough, that was his name. I just called him 'Gramp.'"

"Lazarus, this is exactly the sort of thing I want to get on record. Ira Johnson is not only your grandfather and my remote grandfather but also is ancestor to many million people here and elsewhere-yet save for the few words you have just told me about him, he has been only a name, a date of birth, and a date of death, nothing more. You've suddenly brought him alive again-a man, a unique human being. Colorful."

Lazarus looked thoughtful. "I never thought of him as 'colorful.' Matter of fact he was an unsavery old coot-not a 'good influence'-for a growing boy by the standards of those times. Mmm, there was something about a young school marm and him in the town my family had lived in, some scandal-'scandal' for those days, I mean-and I think that was why we moved. I never got the straight of it as the grownups wouldn't talk about it in front of me.

"But I did learn a lot from him; he had more time to talk with me-or took more time-than my parents had, Some of it stuck. 'Always cut the cards, Woodie,' he would say. 'You may lose anyhow-but not as often, nor as much. And when you do, lose, smile.' Things like that."

"Can you remember any more of what he said?"

"Huh? After all these years? Of course not. Well, maybe. He had me out south of town teaching me to shoot. I was maybe ten and he was-oh, I don't know; he always seemed ninety years older than God to me.* (* Ira Johnson was seventy when Lazarus Long was ten. J.F. 45th) He pinned up a target, put one in the black to show me it could be done, then handed me the rifle-little .22 single-shot, not good for much but targets and tin cans-'All right, it's loaded; do just what I did; get steady on it, relax and squeeze.' So I did, and all I heard was a click-it didn't fire.

"I said so, and started to open the breech. He slapped my hand away, took the rifle from me with his other hand-then clouted me a good one. 'What did I tell you about hangfires, Woodie? Are you aching to walk around with one eye the rest of your life? Or merely trying to kill yourself? If the latter, I can show you several better ways.'

"Then he said, 'Now watch closely'-and he opened the breech. Empty. So I said, 'But, Gramp, you told me it was loaded.' Shucks, Ira, I saw him load. it-I thought.

"'So I did, Woodie,' he agreed. 'And I lied to you. I went through the motions and palmed the cartridge. Now what did I tell you about loaded guns? Think hard and get it right...or I'll be forced to clout you again to shake up your brains and make 'em work better.'