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suit was mohair, and Homer, who was tall, slim, and light-complected, was pleased at how he looked in it, and how it felt, so cool. Bardie’s outfit was white, and he went into the house with it. Homer surveyed all around, partly I thought to duck work, but partly to figure things out, as the idea was to put cars out back, and leave the front unobstructed, so its beauty could be observed.
    Then here came the bartender, whose name was Jake, in a yellow convertible, and the chef, Emil, in quite a high-toned sedan. Then Val came, driving three girls in his car, which was also a sedan, though not a knockout like Emil’s. By then, Jake and Emil were dressing, also in my front parlor, and called out the window the girls could dress with them. By their looks I think they might have, but Val cut in pretty quick and said they should dress in the house. By then it was coming on four, and I soon was alone again, in slacks and Sunday shirt, but with the coat laid out on the bed. The ray of sunshine, I felt, had somehow got itself loused, and I would have to pass drinks. Then I heard the phone, and Val’s voice calling me. I went, and he was just coming out the door, the one from the living-room to the patio, and seemed upset. He said: “Duke—Bill just called—he’s in a spot. You know—he’s with the Association—Southern Maryland Tobacco Growers Association—down in Waldorf—and today of all days—bunch of tractors been delivered—and they got to be parked. He thought about you. What say, boy, can do?”
    “I think so, Mr. Val.”
    “It’ll mean your missing the party.”
    “If I has to I has to.”
    “Thanks, Duke. I must have Bill, there’s a reason. No Bill, no party—at least no real party.”
    “Do I take a bus, or—”
    “Bill’s running you down.”
    By that time she was there, staring at me. She said: “Duke, I’m most grateful.”
    Bill got there suspiciously quick, and didn’t say much in the car, except I should look Waldorf over, so I’d have it all straight. So I fixed it in mind, a small place twenty miles down, with lumber signs, bars lit up for the Fourth, a tobacco warehouse, and the Association showroom, but not any consignment of tractors. He stopped in front of a bar and we went inside. Marge was in a booth, in a neat speckled black dress, a Manhattan in front of her, holding places for us. She spoke, and Bill asked her: “Did Mom call up yet?”
    “She and your father will be along later, with the others. I said we should all meet here.”
    Bill said to me with a wink: “The St. Mary’s County bunch. Who’ll go, on account of Holly, but not till I lead the parade. Which is why Val must have me. Not that he likes me.” And then: “Brother, does Holly hate it, having to ask these people!”
    That, I thought, explained quite a lot, and I was pleased to sit down with them and pass the time.
    The place was dark, with some few people in it, air-conditioned cool, and a battery of bandits. We played them, after Bill got his Manhattan and I got my Coke, and they lost, but I won five dollars. So they didn’t refuse when I ordered another round. So that made it quite sociable, and it came to me if I made any pitch at all I could find out some things, especially about my release. I said: “Could I ask, with nobody else present, the deal that was made on me? We don’t speak of the caper I pulled. I mean why I was sprung.”
    Nothing was said for some minutes, but something passed between them, because Bill answered, very careful: “Politics could be part of it.”
    “Mr. Val is in politics?”
    “What isn’t he in?”
    I felt there would be more, and pretty soon she took it up: “Duke, no paper got your case, and we’ve felt, like Holly, that the less said about it the better. But, since you have brought it up, you just as well know that Val is in politics, and in a most peculiar way. How he got started on it we don’t really know, as he’s older than we are and at that time we