[Crowbob]

On yet another occasion, while playing hide and seek with my son, I deviously hid myself behind the door of a peculiarly-slanted cubbyhole off an upstairs bedroom in the house he had been born in and for which, I knew, the mortgage could never be retired let alone maintained to the satisfaction of the bankers.

Light and shadow were visible beneath the portal of the secret passage. I watched those shadows cast by my son as he searched for me in vain. Eventually, giving up the game, he retreated to otherwise occupy his inquisitive mind on something else.

I soon extricated myself to ask him why he had given up his search.

I didn't give up, said he, 'Why did you tell me you were behind the door? I thought the game was over.'

Of course, I had made no such communication, or so I thought.