“Harrisburg. We’ll likely be mustered tomorrow afternoon by Major Haller. We’ll be part of Couch’s Army of the Susquehanna.”

“Army of the Susquehanna.” Dan heard a hard, tight voice which might have been his own. “We look at reality, and we do not see it. It is colorless, without any form or surface or consistency. We listen for reality: it has no sound … no shape. Nothing that we can grasp or smell. It remains unnamable.” The voice stopped speaking; only it breathed heavily.

Hud asked, “What ails you? God.”

“That was a Chinaman,” the compact voice went on again. “Lucas Mite introduced me to him. A very strange man, Mite. He came from Connecticut: I think he killed someone there before he came west. And he has a conscience. He tries to assuage it with Shakespeare and all sorts of things. Well, he had a little book—a paper one. The person who wrote it claimed that it was translated from the Chinese language. There was a man named Lao Tze, who lived a long time before Jesus Christ. He wrote a book called the Tao Teh King … No reality.”

Long silence. Elijah looked somber, and swished the whiskey about in its carved red bulb.

“He was only a Chinaman with a queue, probably,” Bale said. “No one to be concerned about. Even if there isn’t any reality which returns always to the realm of nonexistence.”

“You must be real drunk,” Elijah said.

“Yes. I must be.”

Insects muzzled about in the elm branches near the window … a dog which always barked, up near McPherson’s.

“Well, I wouldn’t have routed you out if I had known you were this way. I mean,” Elijah added peevishly, “talking about men from Connecticut and Chinese people and reality, and all. This is pretty serious business, being invaded, whether you believe it or not.”

Dan said, “The devil.” He moved over to the wash-stand and bumped against it heavily. He took up the pitcher.

“That water is foul if it’s been here long,” Elijah muttered. “Give me the pitcher.” He wrenched it out of Dan’s grasp and went away downstairs. Bale sat at the big table with his head on his arms. He heard the pump squawling … Hud came back with fresh water for him, and he drank deeply and splashed his face in the bowl. “Thank you,” he said. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”

Elijah sat on the sill of the open window. “No, I’m too excited for anyone to offend, I guess. Being mustered in—”

“I want to understand it correctly. You mean that you’re all going into United States’ service?”

“Not all. Bart McKosh can’t go, naturally, and Haller said no one would think of accepting Ernie Dryer—not now, anyway. And those musicians are just a kind of pick-up to help with the drill. But most of the rest—”

“They’ll take—you?”