"Now who's trying to influence him?" Chuck laughed.

"Well," Pat mumbled, "if the feeling's there, what is there you can do? Haul off and flatten his nose, call him every name you can think up, tell him you don't want a pansy on your tail-and what happens? If the urge is there, he'll probably love it. But if the sight of a bruiser a block away doesn't start his furnace, you can poke it all you want, but the thing won't blaze. Right?" "Right!" Chuck grinned. At least it sounds like we could defend our position if we had to. Well, I'd better shove off. Hope I don't smell like a beer factory." He stood in the doorway looking happily upon his friend, who still lay handsomely horizontal on the couch, smiling back at him broadly. "Now you be a good boy while I'm gone."

He closed the screen door behind him, looked in, and whispered, "Don't forget the swim. And your trunks at least try!" Turning, he ran down the stairs, and the wondrous ring of Pat's laughter followed.

THE SLEEPING BOY

The boy with twi-lit eyelids waits, nor wakes To hear soprano woman-sounds and soft For he stirs only where the night-winds waft The hollow hush his father's great horn makes Down darkened hills where morning never breaks; And memory's moon is ever long aloft, A cup of madness never fully quaffed, But tempting thirsts he never fully slakes.

You will not rouse him with a violent voice, Nor damn his dreaming with another dream; He will not trade these toys for older toys, Nor vary variations on your theme;

For he is that unlaughed somnambulist

Who never learned where women should be kissed.

Paris Flammonde

-from

"Twilight Town"

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