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bust. It doesn't have to be the end of the world, does it?"
    "Doesn't it?" Max's voice was hoarse, and he looked about the room as if he suspected eavesdroppers. "We're up to the hilt, you and I. The firm's in it, too. We'd lose our office!"
    "And what does that amount to?"
    "The law library? The furniture? The lease?"
    "Oh, to hell with them."
    "To hell with them?" Max's eyes were brimmed now with actual tears of outrage. "To hell with bankruptcy? Do you think, Tony Lowder, for one solitary second, that you could be appointed to any government job if you and I went bust in a mess like this?"
    Tony turned away impatiently. "You exaggerate. There's no disgrace in bankruptcy. Anybody can take a licking on this market."
    "Dream on. When Governor Horton sees how much you've been gambling, he won't touch you with a ten-foot pole. You'll seem too giddy.
At best
"
    "At
best?
"
    "Well, there's something else."
    "Come on, let's have it."
    "I've borrowed from some pretty unsavory characters."
    "Damn it all, Max!"
    But Tony's sudden anger seemed only to excite Max to a final pitch of exasperation. "Damn it all yourself, Tony! Don't talk to me that way. Who the hell do you think you are? Who the hell do you think made the world aware that such a person as Tony Lowder even existed?"
    "I guess I know what I owe you, Max."
    Max's tone, at this small concession, slid at once from a screech to a whine. "Oh, I don't want your gratitude, Tony. I did it just as much for me as for you. The point is: we're a team. You're the star, sure, but the star still needs a manager. You're my big gamble, in politics, in law. Hell, in life. You're the only real, honest-to-goodness, in-it-to-the-finish friend I've ever had. We've got to stand together. And now...!" Max's whine suddenly subsided, and some of his old enthusiasm seemed to be rekindled in his eyes. "We're almost there, you know. We would have been, except for this filthy recession. Herron's basically sound; so are the restaurants. With anything like half a chance we could clear a million. We're so
close,
Tony. So close I can smell it. It's bust or glory. We could be all set, and you with a political career that could take you anywhere. Anywhere at all!"
    Tony wondered why he did not care more. There was something eerie about the moments, like this one, when his ambition shut off, like the motor of an airplane, leaving him precariously to glide. One might have emotions; one might have sympathies; one might even have love, but without ambition it sometimes seemed that these other things simply jostled one aimlessly hither and yon, like eddying air currents, until the prevailing yank of gravity brought one to the inevitable smash.
    "You talk as if I wanted to go broke," he said.
    "Sometimes I think you do. You know Joan Conway would give it to you."
    "Oh, lay off Joan Conway."
    "Well, don't you!"
    Max with this gave a howl of laughter and ran around the board table when Tony grabbed at him. Tony caught him and twisted his arm behind his back.
    "Take it back."
    "Oh, come on, Tony. Can't you even screw for money like that?"
    Tony gave his arm an extra twist until Max squawked in pain and then let go in disgust. For Max actually liked it. His blue eyes had the fixed look of an ungulate overpowered by a carnivorous foe.
    "You're a filthy-minded bastard," Tony said flatly. "However, I'll try to raise the money."
    "That's talking."
    "Mind you, Joan's only the last resort."
    "I'm glad you can still talk of last resorts. Mine are all used."
    "You should have stopped at the next-to-last."
    "If I live, I'll learn. But do it for your kids, Tony. Do it for Lee."
    "Why do you say that?"
    "Because I haven't known you for fifteen years without learning that the way to get something out of you is to appeal to your neurotic unselfishness."
    "Get out of here."
    ***
    Walking across the park to his parents' apartment house, Tony considered his "neurotic unselfishness." He had always been a bit embarrassed by this habit