―Oh, I see, Stephen said.
―That’s an old riddle, he said.
After a moment he said:
―I say!
―What? asked Stephen.
―You know, he said, you can ask that riddle another way.
―Can you? said Stephen.
―The same riddle, he said. Do you know the other way to ask it?
―No, said Stephen.
―Can you not think of the other way? he said.
He looked at Stephen over the bedclothes as he spoke. Then he lay back on the pillow and said:
―There is another way but I won’t tell you what it is.
Why did he not tell it? His father, who kept the racehorses, must be a magistrate too like Saurin’s father and Nasty Roche’s father. He thought of his own father, of how he sang songs while his mother