"It's just that I don't get it," Swanson said. "I don't understand."

"Of course! Why didn't I think of it before?" Ken swooped the ottoman from the floor; brought it close to his dad's chair and straddled it. "There's no way for me to introduce you to this thing I'm studying without cramming you with the three years I've had of it. But,. . . look," Ken leaned forward anxiously pointing to his index finger. Swanson glanced at the finger heedlessly for a moment. Why don't I have you meet Tom?" The question was half speculation.

"Tom?"

"Sure. One of the fellows in my class; an A-1 psych major and an admitted homo he stopped, smiled, .. homophile."

"You mean here?"

"Where else? I'm meeting him and a couple other fellows tomorrow night. We're going to a lecture up town. I could have Tom meet me here. You may have a few questions to ask him.'

Swanson rose quickly from his chair; rolled the cigar in his mouth. "Kendall, I'm expecting the Hamilton boy in town sometime this week, the son of one of my best clients. A Yale boy."

"So?"

"Well, I . . . I just don't want to have them meeting, that's all." "Eeee-gad!" Ken slipped off the stool frontways, turned, flopped into the chair still warm by his father. "Tom is quite human. I'm going to school, Dad. There are people in school. They're going to be my business, Dad." "Hog wash," Swanson thrust the slang at him. "What do you think being a lawyer is, a dog keeper?"

"Then let's put it this way, people are not only my business, they're my art, too. And, Dad, if you can't understand...

"All right, all RIGHT!" Swanson lunged at an ashtray and stabbed the cigar into it. Ken's half-uttered ultimatum sounded too final. "When is this lecture, you say?"

Ken grinned; it was a visible sigh. "Tomorrow night," he said.

After dinner the following evening, Swanson sat down in the living room, awaiting his visitor. Sometimes being a father seemed too much, he reflected moodily. Though affirming to himself that he would never go the side of modernism, he was resolved to keep his close-knit ties with Kendall so far as possible, and determined to meet him half-way. But this was becoming more and more difficult, he thought, what with the beginning of his boy's college career, and his own increasing preoccupation with his profession.

Dear," his wife's voice, though soft, plunged into the midst of these musings like a stone thrown into quiet waters.

"Yes? Mrs. Swanson?"

"You needn't look so far away. It will all be right. After all, you wanted to know this thing better."

"I don't see how meeting one of these . . . these BOOBS can give me the knowledge...'

"Understanding, perhaps, is what Kendall means, dear."

"But I know too well what they're like! Every school has its character. Why, the one we had...

"I don't approve any more than you do, dear," said Mrs. Swanson, "about this new schooling . . . but perhaps

The chimes arrested the thought. She looked apprehensively at her husband while the maid answered the door.

"Mr. Tom," the maid said, laconically.

Mr. Swanson rose quickly, a little too quickly, he thought, and made slower his approach. He held out his hand. "Good to see you, my boy," said he, and was immediately sorry for the tone that may have sounded too affectionate. At the same time he felt aware of the too gentle clasp of the hand in his. He released the hand quickly. "Ah, we were expecting you," he said.