"I should like to hear it."

"What a shame." She was genuinely upset that she had not thought of him, her favourite, her only real son. "I'm making microscopes now. And gardens, of course, to go with them. And tiny beasts. But perhaps I'll do the cherubs again some day. And you shall hear them, then."

"If I am not being 'virtuous,' " he said archly.

"Ah, now I begin to understand the meaning. If you have an impulse to do something — you do the opposite. You want to be a man, so you become a woman. You wish to fly somewhere, so you go underground. You wish to drink, but instead you emit fluid. And so on. Yes, that's splendid. You'll set a fashion, mark my words. In a month, blood of my blood, everyone will be virtuous. And what shall we do then? Is there anything else? Tell me!"

"Yes. We could be 'evil' — or 'modest' — or 'lazy' — or 'poor' — or, oh, I don't know — 'worthy.' There's hundreds."

"And you would tell us how to be it?"

"Well…" He frowned. "I still have to work out exactly what's involved. But by that time I should know a little more."

"We'll all be grateful to you. I remember when you taught us Lunar Cannibals. And Swimming. And — what was it — Flags?"

"I enjoyed Flags," he said. "Particularly when My Lady Charlotina made that delicious one which covered the whole of the western hemisphere. In metal cloth the thickness of an ant's web. Do you remember how we laughed when it fell on us?"

"Oh, yes!" She clapped her hands. "Then Lord Jagged built a Flag Pole on which to fly it and the pole melted so we each made a Niagara to see who could do the biggest and used up every drop of water and had to make a whole new batch and you went round and round in a cloud raining on everyone, even on Mongrove. And Mongrove dug himself an underground Hell, with devils and everything, out of that book the time-traveller brought us, and he set fire to Bulio Himmler's 'Bunkerworld 2' which he didn't know was right next door to him and Bulio was so upset he kept dropping atom bombs on Mongrove's Hell, not knowing that he was supplying Mongrove with all the heat he needed!"

They laughed heartily.

"Was it really three hundred years ago?" said Jherek nostalgically.

He plucked a leaf from the aspidistra and reflectively began to chew it. A little blue juice ran down his beige chin.

"I sometimes think," he continued, "that I haven't known a better sequence of events. It seemed to go on and on, one thing leading neatly to another. Mongrove's Hell, you know, also ruined my menagerie, except for one creature that escaped and broke most of his devils. Everything went up, in my menagerie, otherwise. Because of Himmler, really. Or because of Lady Charlotina. Who's to say?"

He discarded the leaf.

"It's strange," he said. "I haven't kept a menagerie since. I mean, almost everyone has some sort of menagerie, even you, Iron Orchid."

"Mine is so small . Compare it with the Everlasting Concubine's, even."

"You've three Napoleons. She has none."

"True. But I'm honestly not sure whether any one of them is genuine."

"It is hard to tell," he agreed.

"And she does have an absolutely genuine Attila the Hun. The trouble she went to, too, to make that particular trade. But he's such a bore."

"I think that's why I stopped collecting," he said. "The genuine items are often less interesting than the fakes."

"It's usually the case, fruit of my loins." She sank into the grass again. This last reference was not to the literal truth. In fact, as Jherek remembered, his mother had been some sort of male anthropoid at the actual moment of his birth and had forgotten all about him until, by accident, six months later she came upon the incubator in the jungle she had built. He had still been nursed as a new-born baby by the incubator. But she had kept him. He was glad of that. So few human beings, as such, were born these days.

Perhaps that was why, being a natural born baby, as it were, he felt such an affinity with the past, thought Jherek. Many of the time-travellers — even some of the space-travellers — had been children, too.

He did get on well with some of the people who had chosen to live outside the menageries and adopt the ways of this society.

Pereg Tralo, for instance, who had ruled the world in the 30th century simply because he had been the last person to be born out of an actual womb! A splendid, witty companion. And Clare Cyrato, the singer from the 500th — a peculiar freak, due to some experiment of her mother's, she too had entered life as a baby. Babies, children, adolescents — everything!

It was an experience he had not regretted. What experience could be regretted? And he had been the darling of all his mother's friends. His novelty lasted well into his teens. With delight they had watched him grow ! Everyone envied him. Everyone envied the Iron Orchid, though for a while she had distinctly tired of him and gone away to live in the middle of a mountain. Everyone envied him, that is, except Mongrove (who would certainly not have admitted it, anyway) and Werther de Goethe, who had also been born a baby. Werther, of course, had been a trial and had not enjoyed himself nearly so much. Even though he no longer had six arms, he still felt a certain amount of resentment about the way he had been altered, never having the same limbs or the same head, even, from one day to the next.

Jherek noticed that his mother had fallen asleep again. She only had to lie down for a moment and she was dreaming. It was a habit she had always encouraged in herself, for she thought up many of her best new ideas in dreams.

Jherek hardly dreamed at all.

If he had, he supposed he would not have to seek out old tapes and platters to read, watch or hear.

Still, he was acknowledged as being one of the very best recreators, even if his originality would not equal either his mother's or that of the Duke of Queens. Privately Jherek felt that the Duke of Queens lost on aesthetic sensibility what he made up for in invention.

Jherek remembered that both he and the Iron Orchid were invited to the Duke's that evening. He had not been to a party for some time and was determined to wear something stunning.

He considered what to put on. He would stick to the 19th century, of course, for he believed very much in consistency of style. And it must be nothing fanciful. It must be spare. It must be a clean, quiet image, striking and absolutely without a personal touch. A personal touch would, again, mar the effect. The choice became obvious.

He would wear full evening dress, an opera hat and an opera cloak.

And, he thought with a self-satisfied smile, he would have the whole thing in a low-keyed combination of russet orange and midnight blue. With a carnation, naturally, at the throat.