Johnny said "Come sit on my lap, glamour girl." He picked up Stella, settling himself on the old high-backed bench before the fire. In the shadows Mario sprawled in a chair. Tessa was asleep on the floor. Johnny added his resonant bass to Barbara's whispery soprano;

"She wept, she cried, she tore her hair,

Ah me, what could I do?

So all night long I held her in my arms

Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew."

"You lovebirds," said Lucia, raising her sleek head from the flutter of crimson tarlatan in her lap. "Stella, that's no way to get your costumės in order for the season."

Johnny circled his wife's shoulders with a protective arm. "That's all right. Lucia, the less wardrobe Stella wears, the better she pleases the crowds. Right, Stel?"

In the shadow past the firelight, Mario caught Tommy's eye and smiled. Johnny and Stella had had the most inauspicious beginning possible. ("Well, heck," Johnny had burst out, defensively, "what could we do about it? They'd billed us as Johnny and Stella Santelli. We just don't look enough alike to be brother and sister. Oh, sure, we could have told them we were just partners, and had them put Stel back in the women's car and have the matron breathing down our necks every time we said three words to each other outside the ring. They'd thought we were married, they gave us a lower berth together, so we took it and we were glad to get it and that was that." Halfway through their first season they had quietly gone off and made it legal, and no one had ever known the difference. But they were happy.) Suddenly Angelo raised his head.

"Put the guitar up, Barbie. I've got something on my mind. Clay?"

"Sir?" said the boy, looking up.

"Come on over here." Angelo pointed at the carpet. "Sit."

Clay folded himself up gracefully at his uncle's feet. Angelo said "What's your name, son?"

"What do you" Clay gulped under Angelo's glare. "Joseph-Clayton-Santelli, junior, sir."

"Santelli, junior," Angelo said. "Now, young man. One thing we do in this family-we learn our place in it. You want to fly?" !

Clay glanced quickly at Mario. "Yes, Uncle Angelo. Look—" "I'm doing the talking, Clay. You've already done yours. I understand you've been giving Mario some argument about the right way to do some catch or other. Out of your great wisdom and experience?"

Clay swung around. "So you went and tattled on me like a girl!” "Shut up," Angelo rapped, "Flying isn't a kid's game with kid's rules. You broke discipline and got reported. Now you listen-"

mattachine REVIEW

"You're not my father!"

Joe Santelli leaned into the firelight and said curtly "None of that, Clay. You flyers make the rules for each other. You stick to them or stay on the floor."

Angelo leaned forward too, his big hands on his knees. "Clay, you are barred from the practice room for two weeks. And after that, no talking back. Johnny-" he looked at the younger man, who let Stella slide from his lap, "you started this, didn't you, by breaking family training rules, and letting Clay talk back and argue with you?”

Johnny set his mouth. "I run my act like a team. If Mario wants to play dictator on his, that's fine by me. He broke Tommy in like a tame cat-snap the whip and he jumps. But I don't train my boys by kicking them around. I don't maul 'em and manhandle 'em. I don't work that way."

"You don't train them, period," Angelo snapped, "you like to play with the kids-you haven't got the patience or the discipline to work with them. You have no notion of discipline, you never had, you never will. So from now on, keep your nose out of it! Clay, you take orders from Mario-and if you don't like it, then stay on the floor. The minute you step on the aerial ladder, you lose your privileges as the spoiled brat of the family, and you take orders. No arguments."

Clay, his chin thrust out, resting on his clenched fists, glared up at An'gelo. "Like Tommy, huh?”

Angelo drew a long, audible breath. "You might take a good look at Mario and Tommy sometimes and see what that kind of training does for you." "Yeah. I know how Mario trained Tommy. You told me that before," Clay said, not moving. It was very quiet in the room. Even Lucia had put down her sewing.

Angelo said, curtly; "There isn't a better team around. And discipline is the keynote." He smiled at Mario, for just a minute, with almost the old warmth, and Mario let out his breath. Tommy saw him uncurl his hands. There were nailmarks in the palm.

Clay sat still for another minute; then laughed. "Yes sir, "he said. He went and sat on the arm of Mario's chair. "Well, I've been told, I've had my ears pinned back good. Creepers," he complained. "Two weeks?" Mario laughed at the boy, but it still sounded strained. "Angelo's getting soft in his old age. I got grounded for a month for having notions of my own about how to change hands on the bar."

Stella looked up and said wickedly "When Johnny brought me home, he told me, welcome to the Santelli Flying and Reform School." Clay looked down at Tommy, shyly. "Were they rough on you, too?" "Oh, man. I used to tell the kids on the lot, if they couldn't find me, just turn their ears into the wind and listen till they heard Mario yelling 'Clumsy