Whistling 'If You're Happy and You Know It' fitted Michael's mood perfectly. He was the happiest man alive. His relationship with Faith had flourished and was bringing him a joy he hadn't experienced for years. He spent every waking moment thinking about her, and he dreamt about her as well. She was constantly in his head. Of late, they'd seen an awful lot of each other and he was beginning to think he was falling in love for the very first time.

What more could he want in a girl? Faith was beautiful, clever and really interested in him, continually asking questions about his life, his likes and dislikes, his feelings and his aspirations. He'd opened his heart to her, with one exception, he hadn't shared his real plans for IIBE but he would let her into that secret quite soon. He was falling in love with her so she deserved to know the truth.

Today was the day that Michael was pushing the boat out and treating Faith to a fabulous lunch somewhere. Not in one of their usual haunts, today it would be somewhere really special. He mentally went through the various posh places he'd heard about when, out of the blue, it came to him. Today, they would lunch at the Ritz.

They arrived shortly after one o'clock and were shown to a table near the large windows which ran along one side of the dining area.

"What a wonderful table," said Faith. "You must have booked this ages ago, you sneaky devil."

Michael just smiled. He hadn't actually made a reservation but he was happy to take full credit for the romantically-perfect table. And perfect it was, as they settled in with a glass of wine, held hands and perused the mouth-watering menu. The prices were mouth-watering too, so it was surprising, in the current economic climate, that the place was still so incredibly busy.

He looked around the plush restaurant and congratulated himself on his choice. The dining room was magnificently ornate; gold and silver decorated the walls, the ceilings and many of the diners. The place was alive with affluent-looking couples, ladies doing lunch and businessmen oiling the wheels of multimillion pound deals. Everyone looked as though they were rich enough to dine in the Ritz every day, everyone apart from the odd-looking pair at the next table.

What on earth was their story? They looked distinctly out of place. What was this old, bearded man doing here with the black-haired youngster? They didn't look comfortable in these surroundings, in fact, they didn't look as if they could afford this sort of thing at all. The truth of the matter was that Madrick and Tung were totally at ease because they'd had breakfast, lunch and dinner here every day for nearly a week.

As he often did, Michael drifted into a world of his own and started to construct little stories in his head about the pair. He was thinking about Fagin and Oliver Twist when the old man caught him staring. As if he was used to quizzical looks, he just smiled a warm smile and got on with his food. Michael looked away guiltily and returned his attention to Faith.

He gave himself an imaginary slap, concentrate on what you're here for, he told himself. This was supposed to be a very special day for his relationship with Faith so he should be giving her all his attention.

"Champagne, please," he said to the sommelier, "and would it be possible for me to pop the cork myself?"

"It's a little unusual, sir, but we always like to please our customers, so why not?"

When the bottle arrived in its ice bucket, the waiter left it discreetly by the table and backed away smiling. Michael lifted out the bottle and made a show of removing the gold foil and the wire cage.

"You look as though you were born to this," said Faith.

Twist the bottle not the cork, he reminded himself.

POPANG!

The cork slipped from his grasp as it exploded out of the bottle. It travelled at lightning speed across the short distance to the black-haired boy's head. Fortunately, he was looking away at the time so his eyes were out of danger. Unfortunately the cork hit him hard on the back of his skull. The cork-strike combined with the shock knocked him off his chair and sent him crashing to the floor.

Everybody froze for a split second which, strangely, seemed to last forever. Then Michael and Faith broke their trance and rushed to see what they could do to help; Michael through fear of a law suit and Faith through compassion for a fellow human being. The sommelier watched from a distance and made a mental note not to agree to any self-opening requests in the future.

Michael and Faith rounded the table towards the stricken body.

"Are you OK?" asked Michael as he bent to help the young man to his feet. "I am so sorry, it just slipped out of my hand."

Faith took his elbow and helped guide him back onto his seat.

"I'm all right. That was relatively painless compared to what my head has gone through over the last few weeks."

"I can't apologise enough," Michael persisted. "The thing just went off in my hand."

"Don't worry. I'm all right... really. To tell you the truth I'm well used to this sort of thing. I actually haven't been struck on the head for a few days now so I was sort of beginning to miss the sensation."

"At least let me treat you to some of our champagne," offered Michael, still keen to make sure this didn't end badly in some sort of unpleasant legal dispute. "It's the very least we can do."

"Sounds good to me, thank you."

They all introduced each other and shook hands. Michael signalled to the waiter with the traditional shaky 'C' hands and, as soon as the extra glasses arrived, he filled them with sparkling wine.

"No hard feelings," proposed Michael.

"At least nothing harder than that cork, please," added Tung.

"And to meeting new people," said Faith to complete the toast.

The four clinked glasses and took a long sip.

"This is the fizziest, most wonderful drink I've ever tasted," bubbled Tung. "The froth tickles the inside of my nose. I thought beer was unbeatable but I just love this. We must order some more because a bottle doesn't seem to go very far."

"Unlike the cork."

Tung called over the waiter. "A bottle of your best champagne, please."

"Vintage, sir? We have some delightful fifteen-year-old classics."

"Nah," said Tung. "Bring us the newest one you've got, we're celebrating."

"No problem," said the sommelier backing away, "and, this time, I'll open this one for you."

"We've found that ordering 'the best' always gets us terrific service," said Madrick.

"Careful," warned Michael. "It'll probably cost you over three hundred quid. This stuff isn't cheap, particularly in this place."

"We've loads of money," said Tung and he ordered yet another bottle just to reinforce the point.

"Shhh," whispered Madrick a little too loudly. "And go easy, we don't want a repeat of The Black Bear tavern incident, do we?"

"Oh come on," said Tung. "Champagne does taste really good so another bottle or two will definitely go down well."

Long before the three bottles had been consumed, their tables had been pulled together and, the way tipsy folk do, they were loudly making unrelated statements in opposition to having a conversation.

"Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends," toasted Faith.

"A party without champagne is like a day without sunshine," slurred Michael using one of his favourite similes. He loved comparing anything bad to a day without sunshine.

"Here's to the champagne and caviar lifestyle. You just can't get enough of it but I bet we'll feel we had too much of it in the morning," shouted Faith.

"Caviar? Caviar? How can this be a champagne and caviar lifestyle if we don't have caviar... whatever caviar is?" To right that wrong, Tung ordered four portions of the 'best caviar in the house'. This definitely was going to be a day of excess.

"Your toast, Michael, is so clever it's worth repeating," said Tung raising his glass. "Shampoo for my real friends, real poo for my enemies."

"Near enough," said Michael as they all clinked glasses again.

They continued to drink until the waiters politely declined to bring more bottles.

"I don't want this party to end," said Tung. "Why don't you come up to our room and we'll carry on there?"

"Yeah, why not?" said Michael even though what was left of the sensible part of his brain could still come up with at least five reasons 'why not'.

On the way to the lift, Tung ordered six bottles of champers, as he'd now learned to call it, to be delivered to his room. Part-eee-time.

"When we first arrived, we thought this was our room," giggled Tung as he hit the button for the seventh floor.

"Doors closing," said the lift in a posh lady's bored tone.

"Listen to what she says," said Faith. "If you ever ignore what the lady says then she'll huff and we'll be going nowhere." She nudged Michael in the ribs with her elbow. "Eh, Michael?"

They arrived at the room a few minutes before the champagne so there was time to settle into the comfortable leather chairs which littered the suite. They'd barely snuggled into their seats when a porter wheeled in six bottles, each housed in its own ice bucket.

"I bet the hotel thought the bottles were for a proper party, rather than just a party of four," said Madrick after the porter left clutching his twenty pound tip.

They drank champagne until the early hours of the morning and, with each bottle, they talked more and more. The conversations were fun and helped them become ever more comfortable in each other's company.

"It's an unusual name you have, Tung, where does it come from?" asked Faith.

"It was my father's idea of a joke." Tung said. "Not only was he a selfish, unloving drunkard, he also gave me this appalling name. Some joke. Thanks, pater."

"I don't understand. How's it a joke? I don't get it," said Michael.

"Our family name is Tide. That makes me Tung Tide - tongue tied - ha ha."

"Oh right, that's quite funny actually, but I suppose it is a little bit mean. Why did he do it?"

"He had no choice, at least that's what he always told me. His name was Hans... Hans Tide. Stupid family tradition, stupid family, stupid names."

"I get it. No choice, hands tied," giggled Madrick.

"I've spent my life listening to people making fun of my name. If I had a lepton for every time I'd heard 'Oh look the Tide's coming in' then I'd have... a big pile of leptons."

"I'm going to be super rich," said Michael, "and in the process I'm going to make the world a better place."

He didn't say how he was going to do it. Something stopped him just in time. He shouldn't be sharing his plans for the bank with strangers, nor Faith for that matter. Not yet, anyway. Hold on, was she giving him a strange look or was that just his imagination? He looked her in the eyes, raised his eyebrows and smiled, a hint for her to talk if ever there was one.

"I want to fall deeply and completely in love, and have at least five children," she said as she gazed back into his eyes. "I'm not interested in money. All I want is my fair share of happiness."

Wow, that was out of the blue. He held her gaze and tried to think how to respond. Should he tell her he loved her?

"I heard a great quote once," she said breaking the tension of the moment. "Burgundy makes you think of silly things, Bordeaux makes you talk about them, and Champagne makes you do them."

Michael laughed harder than he meant to. He was relieved that they were back to small talk. He made a mental note to follow up the love-children-happiness conversation with Faith although he realised, in his current condition, he could well lose the note.

"Tung does silly things without the need for Champagne," said Madrick. "Although he can get even sillier with alcohol."

"I can hold my drink," said Tung. "BUUURP, BUUURP."

"Maybe so," said Faith, "but you certainly can't hold your bubbles."

"Ha ha," said Tung. "BUUURP... ooops, sorry."

"I suppose I've done some daft things myself," said Madrick, ignoring the belches, "but from now on I just want to enjoy everything life has to offer. This century has so much more to offer than..." He stopped mid-sentence, as if he'd changed his mind about what he was about to say. It reminded Michael of how he'd stopped himself talking about the bank.

Everyone seemed to be a little circumspect, wary of sharing too much. Everyone except Tung, who was about to open an incredibly wriggly-wiggly can of worms and spill the beans. Without any preamble, he launched into the story of his sorry life and how it had led him to Mifal's horrendous dungeon. He described meeting Madrick and learning about the Scroll. He got really excited as he illustrated their adventures with florid descriptions of invisibility, the chase, flying, thunderballs and time-travel.

"And here we are now," he concluded.

Madrick and Faith had been soundly, and in Madrick's case noisily, asleep long before Tung's account of the escape from Mifal's dungeon. Michael, on the other hand, had managed to stay partially awake for the whole tale. However, the champagne had so befuddled his brain that the whole evening had taken on a dreamlike quality.

"You're an amazing storyteller, Tung. I just hope some of your saga sticks in my mind."

No answer.

He looked round the room. Everyone was now asleep. 'This could be the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me' was his final thought before he passed out on the plush leather sofa.