“I’m Mrs. Pearl Lambert,” she said. “I was cooling off in my room, looking at the TV.” She smiled at the first woman, who had resumed her station on the couch. “Thank you, Luce. Billy I think would sleep through a three-alarm fire. But he’s a good boy, he helps me around the place a lot.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Well, now. I suppose you’re after a room.” The little woman stepped behind the desk and opened a drawer. “Our singles run three and a half dollars a night, depending how long you plan to stay with us.”

“I think I’ll be here quite a while, Mrs. Lambert.”

“Over a week?”

“Oh, I think longer than that. Probably several months.”

The woman’s eyes gleamed. “Then the charge is two-fifty. We always reduce it for our temporary permanent guests.”

“That’s very nice of you.”

“It’s just fair, that’s all. We like to be fair in this town. Why should a temporary permanent guest have to pay as much as the people that just flit in and out?” She found a dusty registration card, pushed it forward.

He wrote: Adam Cramer; paused; listed the Union Hotel, Caxton, as his address.

“I’ll put you in number twenty-five. That’s upstairs.” The woman thumped her fist on the call-bell six times. “Billy!”

The middle-aged man awoke with a start, looked around, got up. “Yes, Mrs. Lambert? I was just resting.”

“I thought you’d taken root. Billy, this is Mr. Cramer. He’s going to be with us for a while.”

The middle-aged man blushed. “I’m proud to know you, Mr. Cramer.”

“Go on up to twenty-five,” the woman said, “and get it aired out. And see if Mabel dusted, too.”

“Yes’m.”

“That boy,” the woman chuckled. She plucked a key from the pigeonhole. “It’ll only take a minute; I wouldn’t want you to step into a dusty room. Mabel’s a good little old worker, but sometimes she gets forgetful. I have to keep after her. But then, I ought to have something to do around here.”

The ladies on the couch laughed, suddenly, in unison. Through the blizzard of white specks on the television screen, a cowboy with a guitar bowed.

“You’re welcome to come down here and watch the TV any time,” Mrs. Pearl Lambert said.

“That would be nice.” The heat had soaked into his clothes now, and perspiration dripped into his collar.

“I suppose you’re a salesman.”

“No. Do I look like a salesman?”

“Not exactly. But that and railroad men are about all we ever get in Caxton. And I know you ain’t a railroad man.”

The little woman cocked her head to one side. “It’s not a solitary bit of my business,” she said, “but what line are you in, anyway?”

“You might call me a social worker, Mrs. Lambert,” he said.