The others laughed, but Ross said, gravely. “Wait till you see me in my pilot’s uniform. Kill you.”

It was then that Chris, delighted, said, “I didn’t know you were a pilot, Mr. Guildenstern.” Suddenly she felt very adult and worldly. Her first glass of champagne, her first wedding party.

“I only fly a freight crate. Maybe some day they’ll give me a passenger plane.”

“Why not now?” Addie demanded, in character.

He shrugged. “Eskimo, I guess.”

“Nuts,” said the Reverend Haskell. “You flew in the war when you were about five years old, or thereabouts.”

“That’s different.”

“But Guildenstern?” Addie pressed on.

“My father was Danish. But no relation to the gentleman you’ve met in the book.”

“Who knows?” Thor said, musingly.

On Ross Guildenstern’s left temple, just below the hairline, there was a scar, it showed a thin white tracing against the darker skin. Chris looked at it, fascinated, she felt an impulse to touch it, a strange impulse which was followed by a still stranger and more pervasive feeling. She must remember to ask her grandfather or perhaps Paul Barnett about that scar.

Addie Barnett saved her the trouble. “Is that scar on your temple a war memento?”

“Not really.”

Mead Haskell took over. “He’s war shy.” He glanced round the table. “Tell them the story, Ross.”

But Guildenstern shook his head. “No old soldier’s reminiscences. They went out with the Civil War.”

Paul Barnett said, “Mead, tell them about the time Father Gilhooley was caught up there.” Then he and Mead began to laugh in the annoying way people have who know the joke.

Thor Storm said, “If it’s as funny as that, out with it. A little laughter at a bridal party is a fine thing.”

“That one!” Ross jibed. “Some version of it in every country in every language in World War II.”

Mead Haskell looked injured. “It really happened. But it’s grown kind of apocryphal, all the way from the South Pacific to Iceland. Well, this Father Gilhooley—you know him, Thor, he used to be up in Atkasuk—he’s a young missionary flying a little Piper and he hasn’t logged a million miles by a long shot. But he’s learning fast, kind of an eager beaver, and he gets up to Oogruk with the nurse he’s carrying and the runway is socked in. He can’t come down, there’s no place to go, there’s no airstrip near. He calls down:

“ ‘I’ve got to come in.’

“ ‘Stay up. You can’t come in,’ Ground Control says.

“ ‘I’ve only got gas for another ten minutes.’

“ ‘Stay up.’

“ ‘I’ve got a nurse with me.’

“ ‘Stay up.’

“ ‘My engine’s coughing.’

“ ‘Can’t come in.’

“ ‘God’s sake what’ll I do!’

“ ‘Repeat after me: Yisgaddal v’yiskaddash sh’meh rabbo, b’olmo d’vro kir’useh v’yamlich malchuseh, b’chayechon uv’yomechon uv’chayeh d’chol bes yisroel—–’ ”

Mead Haskell broke off into helpless laughter in which Ross joined. The others wore the resentful expression of the uncomprehending.

“Very funny and all, I don’t doubt,” Bridie said, crisply. “But maybe if we knew what it meant it would seem funnier.”