On Monday afternoon, Tommy took care of his last three presents, by meeting with banker Otto Mills, down at the Bluebonnet Diner. Mister Mills met Tom...y there to keep their business dealings a secret from Betty Lou.Christmas morning found Tommy up and dressed by six in the morning. With everyone else in the house sleeping, Tommy snuck into the family room and put his boxed presents under the tree. When his neatly wrapped (thanks to Melody Graham) presents were in the pile with all the others,. She stood back up and moved behind me.‘Right. Hold still!’And with that, I felt the swish of air, heard the sound of the crop - and felt the first stroke land on my exposed bottom.Thwack!I gasped loudly, as the pain seared across my buttocks.Thwack!I hardly had time to yell before the second stroke landed, harder than the first.Another gasp, louder than the first.Thwack, Thwack!Then the third, and the fourth. Lorraine wasn’t leaving much space between strokes. The fifth stroke caught me at the. Marilyn even wrote to thank the company for our prompt attention to the problem and for settling it so easily. She indicated that as she would be re-furnishing the rest of the house, she would look first at our products to see if there was a suitable design and colour. After that letter the M.D. called me in to give me some brownie points."You must have really laid on the charm, Dal." I wasn't going to tell him anything. That it also gave him ammunition with the board was none of my business. I. Suddenly Alec brought the car to a halt outside an old warehouse buildingthat had been recently converted into a block of apartments. "I livehere," he said. "Do you fancy coming up for a coffee and a look around?" And let you show me your etchings as well I suppose!" I responded with asmile. "You do know that is the oldest chat-up line in the book!" Alecsmiled in return. "No really," he said, "I promised no hanky-panky on mypart and I meant it; it is just that it has been such a great evening.