Clive ran out of the room laughing a toddlerish giggle, which was somewhat cute on an 11-year-old.

He left his remaining family in Hui-chou and proceeded to Tan-chou in Hai-nan accompanied only by his son Su Kuo.

While triple goddesses can be found in many cultures (Celtic, Roman, Greek, Hindu, and Mesopotamian, for example), the classification of the triplicity into a maiden-mother-crone format is distinctly modern.

With their hair half up, and dressed demurely in black formalwear, they seemed like lost girls and conveyed little beyond a vague sense of urgency and dread; sure technicians all, they are not yet artists able to make their lashing limbs and inscrutable gestures mean something.