"There ain't no chance now, and there wouldn't be any fun in it.

It isn't like the old times when him and me were all alone, and we used to write letters as coming from other people to all the boys round Heavy Tree and the Bar, and sometimes as far as Boomville, to get them to do things, and they'd think the letters were real, and they'd do 'em.

And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, and nobody ever knew who did it." Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief, half in frightened admiration.

Sitting astride the log, his elbows on his knees and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, the boy's handsome face became illuminated with an impish devilry which the father had never seen before.

With dancing eyes he went on.