Might have been, Kenny said perversely. He didn't remember.

"Ossian lived there with the daughter of the King of Youth for three
hundred years that seemed but three," reminded Whitaker. "Well, no
matter. The point is this: The Land of the Young and the King of Youth
always make me think of you."

"It is true," said Kenny with biting sarcasm, "that I still have hair
and teeth. It is also true that I am the respectable if unsuccessful
parent of a son twenty-three years old and I myself am forty-four."

"Forty-four years young," admitted Whitaker. "And Brian on the other
hand is twenty-three years old. There you have it. You know precisely
what I mean, Kenny. Youth isn't always a matter of years. It's a
state of being. Sometimes it's an affliction and sometimes a gift.
Sometimes it's chronic and sometimes it's contagious enough to start an
epidemic. You're as young and irresponsible as the wind. You've never
grown up. God knows whether or not you ever will. But Brian has.
There's the clash."

"Go on," said Kenny with a dangerous flash of interest in his eyes.
"You've an undeniable facility, John, with what you call the truth."

"It's an unfortunate characteristic of highly temperamentalized
individuals--"

"Painters, Irishmen and O'Neills," put in Kenny with sulky impudence.

"That they frequently skirt the rocks for themselves with amazing