He brightened immediately, and for a while he looked almost happy in his old cat’s eyes. Then he staggered over to my chair and held out his hand. I did not touch it, and he finally pulled it back. “I know how you feel,” he said. “I know just how you feel.”

“Sure,” I said.

“But you’re a young man, you have a future. But not me. I’ll be dead inside of a year.”

Just then his wife dragged in to offer me a cigar. They were being hospitable and I forced myself to drink a little of the sherry.

“They took my dog away today,” she mumbled. “That’s all I had in the world, my dog.”

I looked at the old man. He was drinking from the bottle.

VI

DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF SEPTEMBER one of the middle-aged men down by the Charles got tired of looking and tried to take a necking girl away from her boyfriend. The police hauled him off to jail, and the girl pulled down her dress tearfully. A few days later another man exposed himself near the same spot. And that same week a dead body was found on the banks of the Charles.

The miniskirted brigade had moved out of the Yard and it was quiet and green and peaceful there. In our building another Jewish couple moved into #44. They did not eat gourmet stuff and, on occasion, threw out pork-and-beans cans. But I had lost interest in perception. I now had many records for my stereo, loads of S. S. Pierce stuff, and a small bottle of Chivas Regal which I never opened. I was working good again and did not miss other things as much; or at least I told myself that.