Mr Newman started to laugh and instead heard a sob of rage in his throat. The train took the man away.

That night after supper he felt again a driving need to be with Fred. The fence dividing their back yards was only two feet high and he stepped over it and descended the concrete steps and entered Fred’s basement. Fred was there at the workbench and beside him stood Carlson. Mr Newman went over to them and stood watching Fred’s hands which were setting the tiny gasoline engine in place in the bottom of the boat. The two men did not seem to notice his arrival. He understood, they were intent on the boat.

The engine in place, Fred went to a chair and sat and Carlson went to the rocker and they talked about the engine and Fred explained how much gas was needed to drive it fifty yards across water. Newman stood there at the bench. They had not even said hello. Ten minutes passed. He felt himself blushing and put in a word. Fred glanced up and acknowledged his presence and then continued talking with Carlson who stubbornly kept his hard eyes only on Fred.

After a few minutes more Newman suddenly raised his head. ‘Is that my telephone?’ he said. The three listened, and he hurried out of the cellar.

Up in his room he stood at the window looking down at the darkness over the back yard. His brows were drawn together. His breath kept coming short. Then he lay down, dumb, senseless. And eventually he slept.

Atop the ladder now he realized that he had finished painting the shutters. And still Fred and Carlson had not returned from Paradise Gardens, where they had gone for a beer two hours earlier without inviting him, although he had been sitting within earshot on the porch. Newman inspected and re-inspected the shutters to find a spot that he had missed. But the wood was all newly green, every inch of it, and the same color, this time, as Fred’s and the rest of the block’s.

He could not stand up here any longer. The rung of the ladder was hurting his arches. Carefully, he took the paint can off the metal hook and rung by rung, descended. As he reached the floor of the porch he heard the engine of a car turning the corner.

At a glance he recognized Fred’s car, and busied himself with lowering the upper extension of the ladder. The car pulled to a stop at the curb.

Now he heard the squeaking of the springs and the slam of the car door as both men got out. Lowering the upper extension of the ladder by releasing the rope that held it up, Newman never turned his head. He had painted his shutters. It would be unheard of for Carlson who noticed everything to pass without commenting on the job he had done. Too, flow that they were seeing him again it was impossible to believe that they would go – Fred into his house and Carlson across the street to his – without uttering a greeting, let alone an excuse for not having invited him to go along.