Frederik Braun. Night of the Jabberwock(engl)


  BANTAM BOOKS 990
 Printing History:
 Dutton Edition Published December, 1950
 1st Printing October, 1950
 Unicorn Mystery Book Club Edition Published February, 1951
 Bantam Edition Published April, 1952
 1st Printing March, 1952
 Copyright, 1950, by Fredric Brown



     ALL VERSES INTRODUCING
     CHAPTERS ARE FROM THE WORKS
     OF CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON,
     KNOWN IN WONDERLAND AS LEWIS
     CARROLL.






        CHAPTER ONE

          'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
                 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
          All mimsy were the borogoves,
                 And the mome raths outgrabe.

     In my dream I was  standing in the middle of Oak Street and it was dark
night. The street lights were off; only  pale moonlight glinted on the  huge
sword that I swung in circles about my head as the  Jabberwock crept closer.
It bellied along the pavement, flexing its wings and tensing its muscles for
the final  rush; its claws clicked  against the stones like the  clicking of
mats down the channels of a Linotype. Then, astonishingly, it spoke.
     "Doc," it said. "Wake up, Doc."
     A hand ­ not the hand of a Jabberwock ­ was shaking my shoulder.
     And it  was early dusk instead of black night and I  was sitting in the
swivel chair at my battered desk, looking over my shoulder at Pete. Pete was
grinning at me.
     "We're  in, Doc," he  said. "You'll have to cut two lines on this  last
take and we're in. Early, for once."
     He put a galley proof down in front of me, only one stick of type long.
I  picked up a blue pencil and knocked off two lines and they happened to be
an even sentence, so Pete wouldn't have to reset anything.
     He went over to the  Linotype and  shut it off and it was suddenly very
quiet in the place, so quiet that I could hear the drip of the faucet way in
the far corner.
     I stood up  and stretched, feeling good, although a little  groggy from
having dozed off while Pete was setting that  final take.  For once, for one
Thursday, the  Carmel City Clarion was ready for the press early. Of course,
there wasn't any real news in it, but then there never was.
     And only half-past six and not yet dark outside. We were through  hours
earlier than usual. I decided that that called for a drink, here and now.
     The bottle in my desk turned  out to have enough  whisky in it  for one
healthy  drink or two short ones. I asked Pete if  he wanted a snort and  he
said no, not  yet, he'd  wait till  he  got over to  Smiley's, so  I treated
myself to a healthy drink, as I'd hoped to be  able to do.  And it had  been
fairly safe to ask Pete; he seldom took  one  before he was through for  the
day,  and although my  part of the  job was done  Pete  still  had almost an
hour's work ahead of him on the mechanical end.
     The drink made a warm spot under my belt as I walked over to the window
by the Linotype and stood staring out into the quiet dusk. The lights of Oak
Street flashed on while I  stood there.  I'd been dreaming ­ what had I been
dreaming?
     On the sidewalk across the  street Miles Harrison hesitated in front of
Smiley's Tavern as though the thought of a cool glass of beer tempted him. I
could almost feel his  mind  working: "No, I'm a  deputy  sheriff of  Carmel
County  and I  have a job to do yet  tonight and I  don't drink while I'm on
duty. The beer can wait."
     Yes, his conscience must have won, because he walked on.
     I wonder now ­ although of course I didn't wonder then ­ whether, if he
had known that he would  be dead  before midnight, he wouldn't have  stopped
for that beer. I think he would have. I know I would have,  but that doesn't
prove anything because I'd have done  it anyway; I've never had a conscience
like Miles Harrison's.
     Behind me, at the stone, Pete was putting the final  stick of type into
the chase of the front page. He said, "Okay, Doc, she fits. We're in."
     "Let the presses roll," I told him.
     Just a manner of speaking,  of course. There was only  one press and it
didn't roll, because it was a Miehle vertical that shuttled up and down. And
it wouldn't even do that until morning. The  Clarion is a weekly  paper that
comes out on Friday; we put it to bed on Thursday evening and  Pete  runs it
off the press Friday morning. And it's not much of a run.
     Pete asked, "You going over to Smiley's?"
     That was a  silly question; I always go over to Smiley's on a  Thursday
evening and usually, when he's finished locking up the forms, Pete joins me,
at least for a while. "Sure," I told him.
     "I'll bring you a stone proof, then," Pete said.
     Pete always does that, although  I seldom  do more than  glance at  it.
Pete's too good  a printer for me  ever to catch any important errors on him
and as for minor typographicals, Carmel City doesn't mind them.
     I  was free and Smiley's  was waiting, but for some reason I wasn't  in
any hurry to leave. It was pleasant, after the hard work of a Thursday ­ and
don't let that  short nap fool you; I had been working  ­ to stand there and
watch  the  quiet  street  in  the  quiet  twilight, and to  contemplate  an
intensive campaign of  doing nothing for the rest of the evening, with a few
drinks to help me do it.
     Miles  Harrison, a  dozen  paces  past  Smiley's, stopped, turned,  and
headed back. Good, I thought, I'll have someone to drink with. I turned away
from the window and put on my suit coat and hat.
     I said, "Be seeing you, Pete," and I went  down the stairs and out into
the warm summer evening.
     I'd misjudged Miles Harrison; he  was  coming  out of Smiley's already,
too soon  even  to  have had  a quick one,  and  he  was opening a  pack  of
cigarettes. He saw me and waved, waiting  in front of Smiley's door to light
a cigarette while I crossed the street.
     "Have a drink with me, Miles," I suggested.
     He  shook his head regretfully. "Wish I could, Doc. But I got a  job to
do later. You know, go with  Ralph Bonney over  to Neilsville to get his pay
roll."
     Sure, I knew. In a small town everybody knows everything.
     Ralph Bonney owned the Bonney Fireworks Company, just outside of Carmel
City.  They  made fireworks,  mostly  big  pieces  for  fairs  and municipal
displays, that were sold all over the  country. And during the few months of
each year up to about the first of July they  worked a day and a night shift
to meet the Fourth of July demand.
     And Ralph  Bonney had something against Clyde Andrews, president of the
Carmel City  Bank,  and  did  his banking  in  Neilsville. He drove  over to
Neilsville late every Thursday night and  they opened the bank there to give
him  the  cash  for  his night  shift pay roll. Miles  Harrison,  as  deputy
sheriff, always went along as guard.
     Always seemed like a  silly procedure to me, as the night side pay roll
didn't amount to  more than a few thousand dollars and Bonney could have got
it along with the cash for his day side pay roll and  held it at the office,
but that was his way of doing things.
     I said, "Sure, Miles, but that's not for hours yet. And one drink isn't
going to hurt you."
     He grinned.  "I  know it wouldn't, but I'd probably  take another  just
because the first one didn't  hurt  me.  So I stick to the rule that I don't
have even one drink till I'm off duty for  the day,  and if I don't stick to
it I'm sunk. But thanks just the same, Doc. I'll take a rain check."
     He had a  point, but I wish he hadn't made it. I wish  he'd  let me buy
him that drink, or several of them, because that rain check wasn't worth the
imaginary  paper  it was printed  on to a man  who was going to be  murdered
before midnight.
     But I didn't know that, and I didn't insist. I said, "Sure, Miles," and
asked him about his kids.
     "Fine, both of 'em. Drop out and see us sometime."
     "Sure," I said, and I went into Smiley's.
     Big, bald Smiley  Wheeler was  alone. He smiled as I came in and  said,
"Hi,  Doc. How's the editing business?"  And then he laughed as though  he'd
said something excruciatingly funny.  Smiley hasn't  the ghost of a sense of
humor  and he has the mistaken  idea that he disguises that fact by laughing
at almost everything he says or hears said.
     "Smiley, you  give me  a pain,"  I told  him.  It's always safe to tell
Smiley a truth  like that; no  matter  how seriously you say and mean it; he
thinks you're joking. If he'd laughed  I'd have told  him where he gave me a
pain, but for once he didn't laugh.
     He said, "Glad you got here early, Doc. It's damn dull this evening."
     "It's dull every evening in Carmel City," I told  him. "And most of the
time I like  it.  But Lord, if only something  would  happen  just once on a
Thursday evening, I'd love it. Just once in my long career, I'd like to have
one hot story to break to a panting public."
     "Hell, Doc, nobody looks for hot news in a country weekly."
     "I know," I  said.  "That's why  I'd like to fool them just once.  I've
been running the Clarion twenty-three years. One hot story. Is  that much to
ask?"
     Smiley frowned. "There've been a couple of burglaries.  And one murder,
a few years ago."
     "Sure,"  I said, "and so what? One of the factory hands out at Bonney's
got in a drunken argument  with another and hit  him  too hard in the  fight
they  got  into.  That's not  murder; that's  manslaughter,  and  anyway  it
happened on a Saturday and it was  old  stuff ­ everybody in town knew about
it ­ by the next Friday when the Clarion came out."
     "They buy your paper  anyway, Doc. They look for their names for having
attended church socials and who's got a used washing machine for sale  and ­
want a drink?"
     "It's about time one of us thought of that," I said.
     He poured a shot for me and, so I wouldn't have to drink alone, a short
one  for himself.  We drank them and I  asked him, "Think Carl  will  be  in
tonight?"
     I meant Carl Trenholm, the  lawyer,  who's about my  closest friend  in
Carmel City, and one  of the three or four in town who play chess and can be
drawn  into  an  intelligent  discussions of  something  besides  crops  and
politics. Carl often dropped in Smiley's  on Thursday evenings, knowing that
I always came in for at least a few drinks after putting the paper to bed.
     "Don't  think  so," Smiley said. "Carl was in most of the afternoon and
got himself kind of  a snootful, to celebrate. He got through in court early
and he won his case. Guess he went home to sleep it off."
     I said, "Damn. Why couldn't he  have waited till this evening? I'd have
helped  him ­  Say, Smiley, did you say Carl was celebrating  because he won
that case? Unless we're talking about two different  things, he lost it. You
mean the Bonney divorce?"
     "Yeah."
     "Then Carl  was representing Ralph  Bonney, and  Bonney's wife won  the
divorce."
     "You got it that way in the paper, Doc?"
     "Sure," I said. "It's the nearest thing I've  got to  a good story this
week."
     Smiley shook his head. "Carl was saying to me he hoped you wouldn't put
it in, or anyway  that  you'd hold it down to a short squib,  just  the fact
that she got the divorce."
     I said, "I don't get it, Smiley. Why? And didn't Carl lose the case?"
     Smiley leaned forward  confidentially across the bar, although he and I
were  the  only ones  in his  place. He said,  "It's  like this, Doc. Bonney
wanted the divorce. That wife of his was a bitch, see?  Only  he didn't have
any  grounds to  sue on, himself ­ not  any that he'd  have  been willing to
bring up  in  court, anyway, see? So he ­ well, kind of bought  his freedom.
Gave her  a settlement if she'd do the suing, and he admitted to the grounds
she gave against him. Where'd you get your version of the story?"
     "From the judge," I said.
     "Well, he just saw the outside of it. Carl says Bonney's a good joe and
those cruelty  charges were a bunch of hokum.  He never laid a hand on  her.
But the  woman  was  such  hell on  wheels  that Bonney'd  have  admitted to
anything to get free of her. And give her a settlement of a hundred grand on
top of it. Carl was worried about the  case because the cruelty charges were
so damn silly on the face of them."
     "Hell,"  I  said,  "that's not  the  way  it's  going to  sound  in the
Clarion."
     "Carl  was  saying he knew you couldn't tell the truth about the story,
but he hoped you'd  play  it down. Just  saying Mrs. B. had  been  granted a
divorce and that  a settlement  had  been made, and not  putting in anything
about the charges."
     I  thought  of my one  real  story of the  week, and  how carefully I'd
enumerated  all  those  charges Bonney's  wife bad  made  against him, and I
groaned at the thought of having to rewrite or cut the story. And cut it I'd
have to, now that I knew the facts.
     I said, "Damn Carl, why didn't he come  and tell  me about it before  I
wrote the story and put the paper to bed?"
     "He thought about doing that,  Doc. And then  he decided he didn't want
to use his friendship with you to influence the way you reported news."
     "The  damn fool,"  I said. "And  all  he had to  do was walk across the
street."
     "But Carl did say that Bonney's a swell guy and it would be a bad break
for  him if you listed those charges  because none of them were really  true
and­"
     "Don't  rub it in," I interrupted him. "I'll change the story.  If Carl
says it's that way, I'll believe  him. I  can't say that the charges weren't
true, but at least I can leave them out."
     "That'd be swell of you, Doc."
     "Sure it would.  All right, give me one more drink, Smiley, and I'll go
over and catch it before Pete leaves."
     I had the  one more drink, cussing myself for being sap enough to spoil
the only mentionable story I had,  but knowing I had to do it. I didn't know
Bonney personally, except just to say hello to on the street, but I did know
Carl Trenholm well enough to be damn sure that if he said Bonney was  in the
right, the story wasn't fair the way I'd written it. And I knew Smiley  well
enough  to  be sure he hadn't given me  a bum steer on what Carl  had really
said.
     So I grumbled my way back across the street and upstairs to the Clarion
office. Pete was just tightening the chase around the front page.
     He loosened the quoins when I told him what we had to  do, and I walked
around the stone so I could read the story again, upside down, of course, as
type is always read.
     The  first paragraph could  stand as  written and  could constitute the
entire story. I told Pete to put the rest of the type in the hell-box  and I
went over  to the  case  and set a short head in  tenpoint, "Bonney  Divorce
Granted," to replace the twenty-four point head that had been on  the longer
story. I handed Pete the stick and watched while he switched heads.
     "Leaves about a nine-inch hole in the page," he said. "What'll we stick
in it?"
     I sighed. "Have to use filler," I told him. "Not on the front page, but
we'll have to find something on page four we  can move front  and then stick
in nine inches of filler where it came from."
     I wandered down  the stone  to page four and picked up a pica  stick to
measure things. Pete went over to the rack and got a galley of filler. About
the only  thing  that  was  anywhere near  the right size was the story that
Clyde Andrews, Carmel City's banker and  leading  light of the local Baptist
Church,  had given me about the rummage sale the church had planned for next
Tuesday evening.
     It  wasn't exactly a story of earth-shaking importance, but it would be
about the right length if we reset it indented to go in a box.  And it had a
lot of names  in it,  and that meant it would please a lot  of  people,  and
particularly Clyde Andrews, if I moved it up to the front page.
     So we moved it. Rather, Pete reset it for a front page box item while I
plugged the gap in page four with filler items and locked up the page again.
Pete  had the rummage  sale item reset by the time  I'd  finished  with page
four, and this time I waited for him to  finish up page one, so we could  go
to Smiley's together.
     I  thought about .that front page  while  I washed my hands.  The Front
Page. Shades of Hecht and MacArthur. Poor revolving Horace Greeley.
     Now I really wanted a drink.
     Pete was  starting to  pound out a  stone proof  and I told  him not to
bother. Maybe the customers would read page one, but I wasn't going  to. And
if there was an upside-down headline or a pied paragraph,  it would probably
be an improvement.
     Pete  washed up and  we  locked  the  door.  It  was  still early for a
Thursday evening, not much after seven. I should have been happy about that,
and I probably would have been if we'd had a good paper. As for the one we'd
just put to bed, I wondered if it would live until morning.
     Smiley had a couple of other customers and was waiting on  them,  and I
wasn't in any mood to  wait for Smiley so I  went around  behind the bar and
got the  Old Henderson  bottle and two glasses  and took them to a table for
Pete and myself. Smiley  and I know one another  well  enough so it's always
all right  for me to help myself, any time  it's convenient and settle  with
him afterward.
     I poured drinks for Pete and me. We drank and Pete  said, "Well, that's
that for another week, Doc."
     I wondered how many times  he'd said that in the ten years  he'd worked
for me, and  then  I got to wondering how  many times I'd thought  it, which
would be­
     "How much is fifty-two times twenty-three, Pete?" I asked him.
     "Huh? A hell of a lot. Why?"
     I  figured it myself. "Fifty times  twenty-three is ­ one  thousand one
hundred and fifty; twice  twenty-three more makes  eleven ninety-six.  Pete,
eleven  hundred  and ninety six times have  I put that  paper to  bed  on  a
Thursday night and never once was there a really big hot news story in it."
     "This isn't Chicago, Doe. What do you expect, a murder?"
     "I'd love a murder," I told him.
     It would  have been funny if  Pete had said, "Doc, how'd you like three
in one night?"
     But he  didn't, of course. In a way, though, he said something that was
even  funnier. He said, "But suppose it  was a  friend of  yours?  Your best
friend, say.  Carl  Trenholm.  Would you want  him  killed just to  give the
Clarion a story?"
     "Of course not," I said. "Preferably somebody  I don't know at all ­ if
there is anybody in Carmel City I don't know at all. Let's make it Yehudi."
     "Who's Yehudi?" Pete asked.
     I looked at Pete to see if he was kidding me, and apparently he wasn't,
so I explained: "The  little  man who  wasn't there.  Don't you remember the
rhyme?

                       I saw a man upon the stair,
                       A little man who was not there.
                       He was not there again today;
                       Gee, I wish he'd go away."

     Pete  laughed. "Doc,  you  get  crazier  every day.  Is that  Alice  in
Wonderland, too, like all the other stuff you quote when you get drinking?"
     "This  time, no.  But  who says I  quote Lewis  Carroll only  when  I'm
drinking? I can quote  him now, and I've hardly started drinking for tonight
­ why, as  the Red Queen said to Alice, `One has to do this much drinking to
stay  in  the same place.'  But listen and I'll  quote  you something that's
really something:
          `Twas brillig and the slithy toves
                 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe­"

     Pete stood up. "Jabberwocky, from  Alice Through the Looking-Glass," he
said. "If you've recited that to me once, Doc, it's been  a hundred times. I
damn near know it myself. But I got to go, Doc. Thanks for the drink."
     "Okay, Pete, but don't forget one thing."
     "What's that?"
     I said:

          "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
                 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
          Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
                 The frumious­"
  Smiley was calling to me, "Hey, Doc!" from over beside
the  telephone and  I  remembered now that I'd heard  it ring  half a minute
before. Smiley yelled, "Telephone  for you, Doc," and laughed as though that
was the funniest thing that had happened in a long time.
     I stood up and started for the phone, telling Pete good night en route.
     I picked up the phone and said  "Hello" to  it and it said "Hello" back
at me. Then it said, "Doc?" and I said, "Yes."
     Then it said,  "Clyde Andrews speaking, Doc."  His voice sounded  quite
calm. "This is murder."
     Pete must  be almost to the door by  now; that was my first  thought. I
said, "Just a second, Clyde,"  and  then jammed my hand over  the mouthpiece
while I yelled, "Hey, Pete!"
     He was at the door; but he turned.
     "Don't go," I yelled  at  him, the length of the bar. "There's a murder
story breaking. We got to remake!"
     I could  feel  the  sudden  silence  in Smiley's  Bar. The conversation
between the two other  customers  stopped  in  the middle of a word and they
turned to look at me. Pete, from the door, looked at me. Smiley, a bottle in
his hand, turned  to look at me ­ and he didn't even smile. In fact, just as
I turned back to  the phone, the bottle  dropped out of his hand and hit the
floor with a noise  that made me jump and  close my mouth quickly to keep my
heart from jumping from it. That bottle crashing on the floor  had sounded ­
for a second ­ just like a revolver shot.
     I  waited  until I felt that I  could talk again without stammering and
then I took my  hand off  the mouthpiece  of  the  phone and said calmly, or
almost calmly, "Okay, Clyde, go ahead."

        CHAPTER TWO

          "Who are you, aged man?" I said.
                "And how is it you live?"
          His answer trickled through my head,
                Like water through a sieve.

     "You've gone to press, haven't you, Doc?" Clyde's voice said. "You must
have because  I tried phoning you at the office first and then somebody told
me if you  weren't there, you'd  be at Smiley's, but  that'd  mean  you were
through for the­"
     "That's all right," I said. "Get on with it."
     "I  know  it's murder,  Doc, to ask you to  change a  story when you've
already  got  the paper ready to run and have  left the office,  but ­ well,
that rummage  sale  we were going to have Tuesday; it's been called off. Can
you still kill the article? Otherwise a lot of people will read about it and
come around to the church Tuesday night and be disappointed."
     "Sure, Clyde," I said. "I'll take care of it."
     I  hung up.  I went over  to  the table and sat down. I poured myself a
drink of whisky and when Pete came over I poured him one.
     He asked me what the call had been and I told him.
     Smiley and his  two  other customers were still staring at  me,  but  I
didn't say anything until Smiley called out, "What happened, Doc? Didn't you
say something about a murder?"
     I said, "I was just kidding, Smiley." He laughed.
     I drank my drink and Pete drank his: He said, "I knew there was a catch
about getting through  early tonight. Now  we got  a  nine-inch hole  in the
front page all over again. What are we going to put in it?"
     "Damned if I know," I told him. "But the hell with it for tonight. I'll
get down when you do in the morning and figure something out then."
     Pete said, "That's what you say now, Doc.  But if you don't get down at
eight o'clock, what'll I do with that hole in the page?"
     "Your lack  of faith horrifies me,  Pete. If I  say I'll be down in the
morning, I will be. Probably."
     "But if you're not?"
     I sighed. "Do  anything  you want." I knew Pete would fix it up somehow
if I didn't get down. He'd drag something from a back page and plug the back
page  with filler  items  or a  subscription ad. It was  going  to be  lousy
because we  had  one  sub ad  in already and too damn much filler; you know,
those little items that  tell you  the number of board feet in a sequoia and
the current rate of mullet manufacture in the Euphrates valley. All right in
small doses, but when you run the stuff by the column­
     Pete  said  he'd better go, and this time he did.  I  watched  him  go,
envying him a little. Pete Corey is  a good printer and I pay him just about
what I make myself. We  put in about the  same  number of hours, but I'm the
one who has to worry whenever there's any worrying to be done, which is most
of the time.
     Smiley's  other customers left, just after Pete, and  I didn't  want to
sit alone at the table, so I took my bottle over to the bar.
     "Smiley," I said, "do you want to buy a paper?"
     "Huh?" Then he laughed. "You're kidding me, Doc. It isn't off the press
till tomorrow noon, is it?"
     "It isn't," I told him. "But it'll be well worth waiting for this week.
Watch for it, Smiley. But that isn't what I meant."
     "Huh? Oh, you mean do I want to buy the paper. I don't think so, Doc. I
don't  think  I'd be very good at running a paper.  I can't spell very good,
for one thing. But look, you  were telling me the other night  Clyde Andrews
wanted  to buy it from you.  Whyn't you sell it to him,  if you want to sell
it?"
     "Who the devil said I wanted to sell it?" I asked him. "I just asked if
you wanted to buy it."
     Smiley looked baffled.
     "Doc," he said, "I never know whether you're serious or not. Seriously,
do you really want to sell out?"
     I'd been  wondering that. I said slowly, "I  don't know, Smiley.  Right
now, I'd be damn tempted. I think I hate  to quit mostly because before I do
I'd like to get out one good issue.  Just one good issue out of twenty-three
years."
     "If you sold it, what'd you do?"
     "I  guess,  Smiley,  I'd  spend  the rest  of  my  life  not  editing a
newspaper."
     Smiley decided I was being funny again, and laughed.
     The door opened and  Al Grainger came in. I waved the bottle at him and
he came down  the  bar to where I was standing, and Smiley got another glass
and a chaser of water; Al always needs a chaser.
     Al  Grainger is just a young  squirt  ­ twenty-two or -three ­ but he's
one of  the  few chess players in town  and one of the even fewer people who
understand  my enthusiasm for Lewis  Carroll. Besides  that,  he's by way of
being a Mystery Man in Carmel  City. Not that you have to be very mysterious
to achieve that distinction.
     He said, "Hi, Doc. When are we going to have another game of chess?"
     "No time like the present, Al. Here and now?"
     Smiley kept chessmen on hand for screwy customers like Al  Grainger and
Carl  Trenholm and  myself.  He'd  bring them out,  always  handling them as
though he expected them to explode in his hands, whenever we asked for them.
     Al shook his head. "Wish I had time. Got to go home and do some work."
     I poured whisky in his glass  and spilled a little trying to fill it to
the brim. He shook  his head slowly. "The  White Knight is  sliding down the
poker," he said. "He balances very badly."
     "I'm only in the second square," I told him. "But the next move will be
a good one. I go to the fourth by train, remember."
     "Don't keep it waiting, Doc. The smoke alone is worth a thousand pounds
a puff."
     Smiley  was looking from me of us to the other. "What the  hell are you
guys talking about?" he wanted to know.
     There wasn't any use trying to  explain.  I leveled my finger at him. I
said,  "Crawling  at  your feet you may observe a bread-and-butter  fly. Its
wings are  thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body a crust and its head is
a lump of sugar. And it lives on weak tea with cream in it."
     Al said, "Smiley, you're supposed to ask  him what happens if  it can't
find any."
     I said, "Then I say it would die of course and you say that must happen
very often and I say it always happens."
     Smiley looked at us again and shook his head slowly. He said, "You guys
are really nuts." He walked down the bar to wash and wipe some glasses.
     Al Grainger grinned at me. "What  are  your plans for tonight, Doc?" he
asked. "I just  might possibly be  able to sneak in  a game  or two of chess
later. You going to be home, and up?"
     I  nodded.  "I was just working myself up to the idea  of walking home,
and when I get there I'm  going to read.  And  have another drink or two. If
you get there before  midnight I'll still  be sober  enough  to  play. Sober
enough to beat a young punk like you, anyway."
     It was  all right  to say  that last part  because it  was so obviously
untrue. Al had been beating me two games out of  three  for the last year or
so.
     He chuckled, and quoted at me:

          " `You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
                 `And your hair has become very white;
          And yet you incessantly stand on your head­
                 Do you think, at your age, it is right?' "
     Well, since Carroll had the answer to that, so did I:

          " `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
                 `I feared it might injure the brain;
          But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
                 Why, I do it again and again.' "

     Al   said,  "Maybe  you  got  something  there,  Doc.  But  let's  quit
alternating  verses  on that before you get  to `Be off,  or ­ I'll kick you
down-stairs!' Because I got to be off anyway."
     "One more drink?"
     "I ­ think not, not  till I'm through working. You  can drink and think
too. Hope I can do the same thing when I'm your age. I'll try my best to get
to your place  for some chess, but don't look for me unless I'm there by ten
o'clock ­ half past at the latest. And thanks for the drink."
     He went out and,  through Smiley's window, I could see him getting into
his shiny convertible. He blew the Klaxon and  waved back at me as he pulled
out from the curb.
     I looked at myself in the mirror back of  Smiley's bar and wondered how
old Al Grainger thought I was. "Hope I  can  do the same thing when I'm your
age," indeed. Sounded as though he thought I  was eighty, at least. I'll  be
fifty-three my next birthday.
     But I had to admit that I looked that old, and that my hair was turning
white. I  watched myself in the  mirror and that whiteness scared me just  a
little. No, I wasn't old  yet, but  I was getting that way.  And,  much as I
crab  about it, I like  living. I don't  want to get old and I don't want to
die. Especially  as  I can't  look forward, as  a  good  many of  my  fellow
townsmen do, to an eternity of harp playing and picking bird-lice out of  my
wings.  Nor,  for that matter,  an eternity of shoveling coal, although that
would probably be the more likely of the two in my case.
     Smiley came back. He jerked his finger  at the door. "I don't like that
guy, Doc," he said.
     "Al?  He's all right. A little  wet behind the ears, maybe. You're just
prejudiced because you don't know where his money comes from. Maybe he's got
a printing press and  makes it himself.  Come to  think  of it,  I've got  a
printing press. Maybe I should try that myself."
     "Hell, it  ain't that,  Doc. It's not my business  how  a guy earns his
money ­ or where he gets it if  he don't earn it. It's the way he talks. You
talk crazy, too, but ­ well, you do it in a nice way. When he says something
to me  I  don't understand  he  says it  in a way that makes me feel like  a
stupid bastard. Maybe I am one, but­"
     I  felt suddenly ashamed of all the things I'd ever said to Smiley that
I knew he wouldn't understand.
     I  said,  "It's not  a matter of  intelligence, Smiley. It's  merely  a
matter of literary background. Have  one drink with  me, and then I'd better
go."
     I poured  him  a drink  and ­ this time ­ a small one for myself. I was
beginning to feel the effects, and I didn't want to get too drunk to give Al
Grainger a good game of chess if he dropped in.
     I  said, for  no reason at  all,  "You're a good guy,  Smiley," and  he
laughed  and  said, "So  are you, Doc. Literary background  or not, you're a
little crazy, but you're a good guy."
     And  then, because  we were both embarrassed at having caught ourselves
saying things like that, I found myself staring past Smiley at  the calendar
over the bar. It had the usual kind of picture one sees on barroom calendars
­  an  almost too  voluptuous naked  woman ­  and  it was  imprinted by Beal
Brothers Store.
     It was just a bit of bother to keep my eyes focused on  it,  I noticed,
although I hadn't  had enough to drink to affect my mind at all. Right then,
for instance, I was thinking of two things at one and the same time. Part of
my brain, to my disgust, persisted in wondering if I could get Beal Brothers
to  start running  a quarter page ad instead of an eighth page; I  tried  to
squelch the thought by telling  myself that I didn't care,  tonight, whether
anybody advertised in the Clarion at all, and  that part of my brain went on
to ask me why, damn it, if I  felt that way about it, I didn't  get out from
under while  I had the chance  by selling the Clarion  to Clyde Andrews. But
the  other part of my mind kept getting more and more annoyed by the picture
on the calendar, and I said, "Smiley,  you ought to take down that calendar.
It's a lie. There aren't any women like that."
     He turned  around and  looked at it. "Guess  you're  right, Doc;  there
aren't any women like that. But a guy can dream, can't he?"
     "Smiley," I said, "if that's not the  first profound thing you've said,
it's the most profound. You are right, moreover. You have my full permission
to leave the calendar up."
     He laughed  and moved  along the bar to finish  wiping glasses,  and  I
stood there and wondered why I didn't go on  home. It was still early, a few
minutes before eight o'clock. I didn't want  another drink, yet. But by  the
time I got home, I would want one.
     So  I got out my wallet and called  Smiley back. We estimated  how many
drinks  I'd  poured  out  of  the bottle  and I settled for them, and then I
bought another bottle, a full quart, and he wrapped it for me.
     I went out with it under my arm and said "So long, Smiley," and he said
"So  long, Doc," just as casually as though, before the gibbering night that
hadn't started yet was over, he  and I would not ­ but let's  take things as
they happened.
     The walk home.
     I had  to go past  the post  office anyway,  so I stopped  in. The mail
windows  were closed,  of course, but  the outer lobby is  always  left open
evenings so those who have post office boxes can get mail out of them.
     I  got my  mail  ­  there wasn't anything  important in  it ­ and  then
stopped, as I usually do, by the bulletin board to look over the notices and
the wanted circulars that were posted there.
     There  were  a  couple  of new ones and  I read them  and  studied  the
pictures.  I've got a  good memory for  faces,  even  ones  I've  just  seen
pictures of, and I'd always hoped that some day  I'd spot a wanted  criminal
in Carmel City and get a story out of it, if not a reward.
     A few doors farther on I passed the bank and that reminded me about its
president,  Clyde  Andrews,  and  his wanting to  buy  the paper from me. He
didn't want to run it himself, of course; he had a brother somewhere in Ohio
who'd had newspaper experience and who would run the paper for Andrews if  I
sold it to him.
     The thing I liked least about the idea, I decided, was that Andrews was
in  politics and,  if  he controlled the Clarion, the Clarion would back his
party. The way  I ran it, it threw mud  at both  factions when they deserved
it,  which  was  often, and  handed  either one  an  occasional bouquet when
deserved, which was  seldom. Maybe  I'm crazy ­ other people than Smiley and
Al have said so ­ but that's the way  I think a newspaper should be run, and
especially when it's the only paper in a town.
     It's not, I might mention, the best way  to make money.  It had made me
plenty of friends and subscribers, but a newspaper doesn't  make money  from
its subscribers. It makes money from advertisers and most of the men in town
big enough to be  advertisers  had fingers in politics  and no matter  which
party I slammed I was likely to lose another advertising account.
     I'm  afraid that policy didn't help my  news coverage, either. The best
source of news is  the sheriff's department  ­ and, at the  moment,  Sheriff
Rance Kates was just  about  my worst enemy. Kates is honest, but he is also
stupid, rude  and full of race  prejudice; and race prejudice, although it's
not a burning issue in Carmel City, is one of my pet peeves. I hadn't pulled
any  punches  in my  editorials  about Kates,  either before  or  after  his
election. He  got into  office  only because his  opponent  ­ who wasn't any
intellectual heavyweight either ­ had got into a  tavern brawl in Neilsville
a week  before election and was  arrested there and charged with assault and
battery.  The  Clarion  had reported that, too, so the Clarion was  probably
responsible for Rance Kates'  being  elected  sheriff. But  Rance remembered
only the things  I'd said about him, and barely spoke to me  on the  street.
Which,  I might add, didn't concern me  the slightest bit personally, but it
forced me to get all of my police news, such as it is, the hard way.
     Past  the supermarket  and Beal  Brothers and past Deak's Music Store ­
where  I'd  once  bought a  violin  but  had  forgotten  to  get  a  set  of
instructions with it ­ and the corner and across the street.
     The walk home.
     Maybe I weaved just a little, for at just that stage I'm never quite as
sober as I am later on. But my mind ­ ah, it was in that delightful state of
being crystal clear in the center and fuzzy around the edges, the state that
every moderate drinker  knows but can't explain or define,  the  state  that
makes  even  a Carmel City seem delightful and  such  things as its  squalid
politics amusing.
     Past the comer  drugstore ­ Pop Hinkle's place ­  where I used to drink
sodas  when I was  a  kid,  before I went away to college  and made the  big
mistake of studying journalism. Past Gorham's Feed Store, where  I'd  worked
vacations  while  I was  in high  school. Past the  Bijou Theater. Past Hank
Greeber's Undertaking Parlors, through which  both of my parents had passed,
fifteen and twenty years ago.
     Around the  corner at  the courthouse, where  a light was  still on  in
Sheriff Kates' office ­ and I  felt so cheerful that, for a thousand dollars
or so, I'd have stopped in to talk to him. But no one was around to offer me
a thousand dollars.
     Out of the store district now, past the house in which Elsie Minton had
lived ­ and  in which she had died while  we were engaged, twenty-five years
ago.
     Past the house Elmer Conklin had lived in when  I'd bought the  Clarion
from him. Past the church where I'd been sent  to Sunday School when I was a
kid, and where I'd once won a prize for memorizing verses of the Bible.
     Past my past, and walking,  slightly weaving, toward the house in which
I'd been conceived and born.
     No, I hadn't  lived there fifty-three years. My parents had sold it and
had moved to a bigger house when I was nine and when my sister ­ now married
and living in Florida ­ had been born. I'd bought  it back twelve  years ago
when it happened to be vacant and on the market at a good price. It's only a
three-room cottage, not too big  for a man  to live in alone, if he likes to
live alone, and I do.
     Oh,  I like people, too. I like someone to drop in for conversation  or
chess  or a drink or all three. I like to  spend an hour or two in Smiley's,
or any other tavern, a few times a week. I like an occasional poker game.
     But  I'll settle,  on any given evening,  for my books. Two walls of my
living room are  lined with  them  and  they overflow into  bookcases in  my
bedroom and I  even have a shelf  of them in  the bathroom.  What do I mean,
even? I think a bathroom  without a bookshelf is as  incomplete  as would be
one without a toilet.
     And  they're good books, too. No, I wouldn't be lonely tonight, even if
Al  Grainger  didn't  come  around for that game of chess.  How  could I  be
lonesome with  a bottle in  my pocket and good company waiting  for me? Why,
reading  a book  is almost as  good as  listening  to  the man who  wrote it
talking to you. Better, in one way, because you don't  have to  be polite to
him. You can shut him up any moment you feel so  inclined  and  pick someone
else  instead. And  you can take  off your  shoes and put your feet  on  the
table. You can drink  and  read until you forget everything but what  you're
reading; you can  forget wh