An interesting time at the Carscallens' house today where Bill was surprised into a celebration of his Birthday: coming home late for lunch (his lateness contrived by means of a cunning plot), he opened the door to find forty or fifty of his friends and relations secreted in his living room: "Surprise, surprise!" we shouted, blowing our kazoos and waving our little plastic clappers.
Bill is proud both of his living family and of his pedigree. His father was a Wing Commander of the Canadian Royal Air Force in the second World War and his great uncle fought with the Canadian artillery at Vimy Ridge bringing home the casing of some of the shells fired there, a polished one of which hangs in Bill's house in the guise of a dinner gong. Among Bill's earlier ancestors was the judge who in 1692 condemned the witches at Salem, Samuel Sewall (1652 — 1730); the family has a painting of him on the wall along with the other framed, family portraits.
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