We had gone through the footpath into Howley Place and were walking toward St. Mary’s Gardens. Silver asked me if I was going home. It couldn’t be very attractive, he expected I’d be out a lot.

“I’m a student at a place called the Grand Union Polytechnic,” I said. “What I mean is, I was a student there, but I think I’ve blown it,” and I told him about hardly ever going there and the missed appointment with Dr. Bodmer. “I suppose that what it amounts to is I’ve dropped out. I’ll have to make decisions now. I’ll have to tell Max.”

“Who’s Max?”

“The old fellow with the fluffy white hair who’s a teacher.” I started laughing again.

“I’ll tell you what. Why not come home with me and I’ll show you my place. It’s on the top, not at all claustrophobic.” He took my arm again and this time we crossed a real instead of a pretend road. “You don’t want to rush into decisions,” he said confidingly. “I never do. Things have a way of deciding themselves for you if you leave them alone. It’s like messages left on the answering machine or letters people send you. If you don’t reply, nothing dreadful happens. If I were you, I’d forget about it and enjoy myself. I mean yourself. That’s the way to get through life, I find. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. And above all, don’t worry. I never do.”

I learned many good things from Michael Silverman but the most valuable was not to worry needlessly. If I had been the age I am now, it would have been too late, but twenty is young enough for a radical alteration to take place in the character. By example, Silver taught me not to fret about things I couldn’t change and he taught me to be patient, to “wait and see.” Hardly anyone enjoyed life, he said, but when you came to think of it, now no one believed in heaven anymore, enjoyment of life was what everything we did aimed at. Doing the work we liked and were trained for, keeping healthy, making money, loving others, having children, eating and drinking, all this was designed to make us happy but it seldom did because people forgot what its purpose was. Silver said he had decided to be happy first, to get into the habit of happiness, and let the rest follow if it would.