Mmm. They must think he was daft.

Where was that damn tinder box? Fingers... you used to get proper fingers in the old days...

Someone pulled the covers off a lantern. Someone else pushed a drink into his groping hand.

"Surprise!"

In the hall of the house of Death is a clock with a pendulum like a blade but with no hands, because in the house of Death there is no time but the present. (There was. of course. a present before the present now, but that was also the present. It was just an older one.)

The pendulum is a blade that would have made Edgar Allan Poe give it all up and start again as a stand-up comedian on the scampi-in-a-casket circuit. It swings with a faint whum-whum noise, gently slicing thin rashers of interval from the bacon of eternity.

Death stalked past the clock and into the sombre gloom of his study. Albert, his servant, was waiting for him with the towel and dusters.

"Good morning, master."

Death sat down silently in his big chair. Albert draped the towel over the angular shoulders.

"Another nice day," he said, conversationally.

Death said nothing.

Albert flapped the polishing cloth and pulled back Death's cowl.

ALBERT.

Death pulled out the tiny golden timer.

DO YOU SEE THIS?

"Yes, sir. Very nice. Never seen one like that before. Whose is it?"

MINE.

Albert's eyes swivelled sideways. On one corner of Death's desk was a large timer in a black frame. It contained no sand.

"I thought that one was yours, sir?" he said.

IT WAS. NOW THIS IS. A RETIREMENT PRESENT. FROM AZRAEL HIMSELF.