Well, the old lady looked sad. Yes, she did. And this made Fred, growing so fast his pants were getting shorter by the second, miffed. He wanted more courage and support from this woman of gargantuan strength. Madam, if you thus elect to choose weakness, hurt, injury, frosted with self-pity, then I, at this belated bar mitzvah of growth, do not approve, he thought, being careful not to consider that he’d been choosing similar weak-necked stratagems for years, like some overgrown pansy in the garden that can’t quite keep its head from bending low. No, he did not think this. But he did think:
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