Starting with the Chair

My son is balancing on the edge of a rocking chair in the corner of my study with a thick red anthology of English Literature on his knee, and he is telling me that these sonnets of Shakespeare's are really very good, especially the satisfying couplets at the end. I am sitting at my desk, where I had been writing a letter until he knocked at the door, and am trying not to show my pleasure, for at his age my approval annoys him as much as he desires it.