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gone back to his office after his golf game. He told Jim to collect the speech on his way to the dinner, and Jim said ‘Yes, Mr Flannery’, and hung up, and explained all this to Maria in a way that sounded as if he was ashamed of himself.
    The twins had never worked out why it should be like this. Their father was so brave with everyone else in the world, and such a wimp with Mr Flannery. When asked, he would always say ‘mortgage’ as if that explained everything, and perhaps it did. Whatever the reason, whenever Mr Flannery told him to jump he just said how high and did it.
    After Jim and Maria got away to the dinner, and the twins were fixing coffee for Mrs Webster the way she liked it—strong and without milk or sugar—Bobby put it into words. ‘How come Dad always jumps when Mr Flannery snaps his fingers?’
    ‘Rank hath its privileges,’ Mrs Webster answered, but said it with a flick of her mouth to say that she did not approve of it. And they settled down for their evening together.

chapter eight
    Mrs Webster began, as she so often began, like this. ‘This,’ she said, as she sat on the sofa knitting while the twins sat on the floor before her, ‘this happened out on the Rim of the Galaxy, about seventy years after first contact with the Ursoids.’
    Sally smiled in anticipation. ‘When we were little kids,’ she said, ‘you used to call them dragons.’
    ‘Younger people understand dragons better than Ursoid invaders,’ replied Mrs Webster, taking another colour into her pattern.
    ‘Sally’s feeling kind of old because Cyril Flannery says he’s going to marry her,’ said Bobby, grinning and nudging his sister.
    Sally was indignant. ‘I wouldn’t marry Cyril Flannery! He looks like a Kavarsh.’
    Bobby looked at Mrs Webster, knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask, but wanting to hear the answer again. ‘What’s a Kavarsh again?’
    ‘Like a toad with fangs,’ Mrs Webster said, as Bobby laughed. ‘And Sally’s right. That boy does look as if he’s got Kavarsh blood somewhere. Now do you want this story or not?’
    ‘Yes!’ they chorussed. ‘We want the story.’
    ‘Okay then. Where was I? Oh yeah. All this happened about seventy years after first contact with the Ursoids.’
    ‘And the Empress of the Galaxy knew she was really going to have to kick some alien butt,’ chimed in Sally and Bobby, because they knew that this was how the story went on.
    ‘Darn right she did,’ Mrs Webster said.
    The story concerned the captain of a scout ship, caught in an Ursoid trap. Before they could destroy him, he contacted the Ursoids, and explained that he was just the advance guard, that a bigger ship was coming, a much more valuable prize than he was, and that if they destroyed him, they would warn the bigger ship to stay away.
    The Ursoids agreed not to destroy him, but to wait. The bigger Empire ship arrived, and this time the captain of this ship told the Ursoids that an even larger, more valuable ship was coming, but if there were any sign of danger, it would divert.
    Again, the Ursoids agreed to postpone battle. And then the big ship arrived. It was enormous. A battle cruiser the size of an asteroid, captained by the ruler of the Galactic Empire herself. Now the big ship, the middle sized ship and the little ship joined forces and destroyed the Ursoids.
    ‘I’ve heard that story before,’ said Sally, ‘except it was about the Three Billy Goats Gruff.’
    ‘That’s a kids’ story,’ protested Bobby.
    ‘What’s it about?’ said Mrs Webster.
    ‘You must’ve heard it,’ said Sally. ‘Everyone knows it. Little Billy Goat Gruff comes to a bridge. There’s a troll, a kind of Kavarsh, living under the bridge—’
    ‘The troll’s called Cyril Flannery,’ said Bobby.
    ‘It’s going to eat the little goat. The little goat says his big brother’s coming and he’ll make better eating. When the middle sized goat comes, he says the same thing. The biggest goat’s