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disappeared among the trees, and James, still clutching precariously stacked loaves and cartons, headed for home. A few seconds later he heard, faint but clear, a faraway echo. “Griffin! Griffin! Where are you?” There was something about it that was almost eerie.

CHAPTER 3
    H E WAS HURRYING , dodging around people on a crowded sidewalk. It was terribly important that he get there in time, and there wasn’t a moment to lose. A large woman stepped in front of him, and he sidestepped, but not quickly enough to avoid brushing against her shoulder. Turning toward him, her face registered displeasure—and then shocked horror. He looked down at himself and saw with dismay that he was stark naked. You can’t fool me, he told himself, this is just another one of those dreams. It was getting to be almost monotonous. But still, just to be on the safe side, he looked around for cover and shot into a handy doorway. He found himself in a large empty hall. Backing away from the glass doors of the entry, he bumped into a table and sat down on it. “May I help you?” a voice said, and he turned to find Diane Jarrett sitting behind the table. She was wearing the pink bikini. He’d been right about the dream. Here we go again, he thought.
    As soon as he was fully awake, he got quickly out of bed. It was getting to be a bit embarrassing, even though Charlotte, who had always been very frank and matter-of-fact about such things, assured him it was a perfectly normal part of puberty. Which was all very well, except he still wondered if he wasn’t overdoing normalcy a bit lately. It did seem that a person with universal goals ought to guard against getting into a rut. He grinned, thinking what Max would do with that one. Fielding, the natural-born straight man.
    During breakfast that morning, he decided to take up tennis again. He’d attended a tennis class as a kid, at Charlotte’s urging, and stuck with it for several years, progressing from terrible to mediocre. Though he hadn’t played much recently, it suddenly occurred to him that this would be a good time to get back on the courts. It would, that is, if he could get permission from T.J. to play at The Camp. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Diane played tennis, for one thing, and for another he obviously needed the exercise. The question now was, had he remembered to bring his racket. He vaguely recalled packing it, but he hadn’t seen it since they’d been in the cabin.
    His mother and father had been engaged for some time in a very animated conversation regarding Disraeli and Queen Victoria, so he waited until there seemed to be a lull before he asked if anyone had seen his tennis racket. William stared at him blankly for a moment and then frowned. He’d lost track of the point he’d been about to make, he said, and was the whereabouts of a tennis racket a matter of such great urgency that it justified the interruption of a conversation?
    James said he was sorry, but his father went on frowning. In the Fielding catechism, interruptions had always been one of the seven deadly sins. There wasn’t any use trying to explain. Although it just might be argued that what could happen to him in the next day or two, if he could find his tennis racket, was somewhat more urgent than something that happened to Disraeli over a hundred years ago.
    After his father remembered the point he’d been about to make, he made it at some length, and when he had finished Charlotte said she was glad that was settled, and if James would look on the top shelf of his closet it might settle another matter, too. A few minutes later he was on his way to The Camp completely equipped for a game of tennis.
    When he entered T.J.’s outer office, Lieutenant Carnaby was feeding the fish in a whole row of small aquariums built into recesses all along one wall. She was in uniform, the belted khaki tunic over longish shorts that were regulation dress in T.J.’s army. It was probably