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the stuffing will be soggy. It’s just a superstition.”
    “It’s absurd,” said her husband, “but I don’t fight it.”
    Qwilleran claimed he had never been superstitious. “As a kid, I deliberately walked under ladders and stepped on cracks in the sidewalk.”
    “And look how he turned out!” Riker said. “Luckiest guy in the northeast central United States.”
    In pioneer days, Mildred related, it was unlucky to whistle in the mines, kill a woodpecker in a lumber camp, or drop a knife on the deck of a fishing boat.
    “Today,” Polly said, “we observe superstitions half in fun and half hopefully. Lynette always wears her grandmother’s ring to play bridge, and she almost always wins.”
    “Anything will work if you think it will,” Qwilleran said. “With the ring on her finger, she expects to win—a positive attitude that enables her to think clearly and make the right moves.”
    “The right bids ,” Arch corrected him. “You’re thinking of chess.”
    With a wink at the others, Mildred said, “Arch always puts on his right shoe before the left.”
    “It has nothing to do with superstition. It has everything to do with efficiency,” he explained. “It’s the result of a lifelong time-and-motion study.”
    “You never told me that,” she said innocently. “But if you accidentally put on the left shoe first, you take it off and start over.”
    “Who needs Big Brother? I’ve got Big Wife monitoring my behavior.”
    “Ooh! I’m going on a diet after the holidays,” Mildred said.
    “Isn’t it strange,” Polly remarked, “how many superstitions have to do with the feet, like putting a penny in your shoe for luck or wearing mismatched socks to take an exam? Bootsie gives his paw three licks—no more, no less—before starting to eat.”
    “Will someone explain to me,” Qwilleran asked, “why Koko always eats with his rear end pointed north? No matter where he’s being fed, he knows which way is north. And Yum Yum always approaches her food from the left. If something’s in the way and she has to do otherwise, she throws up.”
    Arch groaned. “This conversation is getting too deep for me. Let’s have dessert.”
    After the plum pudding had been served and after the coffee had been poured, the presents were opened—not in a mad scramble but one at a time, with everyone sharing the suspense.
    The first—to Qwilleran from the Rikers—was an odd-shaped package about four feet long. “A short stepladder,” he guessed. “A croquet set.” It proved to be a pair of snowshoes. “Great!” he said. “There are snow trails all around here! It’s just what I need to get some exercise this winter!” And he meant it.
    Polly was thrilled with her suede suit and silk blouse, and the Rikers whooped in unison over the Majolica coffeepot. Then Arch unwrapped his baseball tie and exploded with laughter, while Mildred screamed in glee.
    Qwilleran said, “It was supposed to be a joke, but I didn’t know it was that funny!” He understood their reaction when, a few minutes later, he opened a long, narrow giftbox from Arch. It was a baseball tie.
    The largest box under the tree—to Qwilleran from Polly—was a set of leather-bound books by Herman Melville, a 1924 printing in mint condition. Included were novels that Qwilleran, a Melville buff, had never been able to find. He dug into the box excitedly, announcing title after title, and reading aloud some of the opening lines.
    “Okay,” Arch said, “you’ve got all winter to read those books. Let’s open some more presents.”
    Also for Qwilleran was an opera recording from Polly: Adriana Lecouvreur with Renata Tebaldi. . . Toulouse gave Koko and Yum Yum a gift certificate good at Toodle’s fish counter. . . Arch gave Mildred a three-strand necklace of onyx beads accented with a cartouche of gold-veined lapis lazuli.
    The last gift under the tree was tagged to Qwilleran from Bootsie. “It’s a package bomb,” he guessed. After