They

When I returned, everyone was talking, even Tom and Bill who always loosened up with liquor. looked somewhat alike in their quiet gray suits and cuff links except that Tom was blond and Bill dark. I could see that Joe and Anna liked Randy, who was insisting they couldn't possibly stay to dinner. They had just dropped in for a minute.

"I won't take no for an answer, said Anna. "There's plenty of food for everybody and the table's all set."

"Well," said Randy, "I guess if that's the way you feel about it. We'd love to."

He and Anna both burst out laughing.

Long before we sat down to dinner I could see that Hugh, their friend, was making a play for Bob and, what is more, that Bob definitely was not displeased. My shoulder began to ache so that I could barely carry the tray of drinks and I felt like dumping the whole thing over Hugh's head. I could see he was already tight; I wondered if he knew what he was doing. Tom and Bill saw what was going on and, of course, Randy did too. I kept filling Hugh's glass along with the others; he drank a lot. When we went to the table, he managed to sit next to Bob, who had that excited little look he always gets when someone shows interest. But by this time Hugh was silent; he had turned yellowish and seemed to be going off into a kind of trance. Randy was watching him. After a while Hugh stood up and walked to the edge of the patio. He seemed fairly steady on his feet.

"If you don't feel good, honey, why don't you go in and lay down?" Randy called.

one

He and I got up, led Hugh into my room, laid him on the bed, and covered him up. He was out cold.

"Is he all right?" asked Anna when we came back to the table.

"Sure, he'll be all right," said Randy. "He shouldn't have drunk that cocktail."

"That's like Jake Fleming," said Anna. "Member that time, Joe?"

"Sure," said Joe. "Give Jake a drink and he's gone.

Joe was a little tight too. He and Randy seemed to be getting along marvellously. Once Randy called him 'honey'. Bob and I both gave Randy dirty looks; Randy said in a southern accent: "You folks mustn't mind me. I'm from the south and that's the way we talk down there. The only south Randy had ever seen was L. A., where he grew up, but we let it pass.

After dinner Anna saw the Grigsbys in their garden next door and called through the hedge to them to come on over. Mary Grigsby said they didn't like to leave the kids.

"Well, bring 'em along for landsakes!" said Anna.

It

I must say I was a little tight. There seemed to be kids running all over the patio and everybody was talking about the sunset and the unusually warm evening. came out somehow that Jack Grigsby had been on Iwo too; he even said he'd heard about those three shells coming over out of nowhere, but I doubted that. He dipped his finger in a puddle of spilled wine and drew lines on the table to show where his outfit had gone.

"Listen, Harry," he said, "you and Bob've got to come over some evening. Do you play bridge?"

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