He went back to the outer room, dressed, went downstairs, and crossed the yard to the big house. Uncle Willy was in the outer porch on his hands and knees, wielding a scrub brush. A pail of soapy water stood by him. “Watch it,” he yelped at Skip. “It’s all wet in here. Go around to the side door. Watch that kitchen. Where it’s still damp, I don’t want it all tracked up.”

“Give me fifty cents, I’ll get something down at the corner.”

“Fifty cents, hell. I’ll be through here in a minute. Ten minutes, it’ll be dry as a bone here. Those eats in the kitchen are free, Skip. Don’t forget that. Don’t try to fifty-cent me when there are free eats for the cooking.”

Skip moved a little closer. “You ought to try to start getting used to having dough, Unc. Now handing out fifty cents would be a good beginning. Practicing, you could say.” Uncle Willy was shooting poisonous looks at him and jerking his head toward the inner recesses of the house where Mr. Chilworth might be listening.

“You weren’t worried about him hearing you talk about his free eats,” Skip pointed out reasonably. “What’s wrong now? Chrissakes, he’s got it bugged out here or something?”

Uncle Willy propped himself on his heels. A thin lock of gray hair had fallen over his eyes. “Skip, you try me. You really do. If you weren’t my own sister’s boy, I swear I’d kick your butt in.”

“Want to try?” But Skip went around to the side door and let himself into the pantry, walked on to the kitchen, and looked around for something to eat. Willy scrubbed his way to the rear door. He propped the mop there, dumped the water on the shrubbery, and came to the side door and was soon in the kitchen with Skip. By now Skip was frying three eggs in about an equal quantity of butter.

Willy heated the coffee, poured two cups full.

“Oh, God, that damned business of working on your hands and knees always did get my back to aching. I bet I washed ten thousand miles of corridor when I was inside. It just wore my spine out. I can’t hardly stand to get down like that any more.”

Skip flipped the eggs around to get them thoroughly covered by the butter. “You won’t have to work like this much longer. You’ll be flying high.”