Next to him was a young boy I was sure had sat near me at one of the trading sessions.

I have more than once sat cross-legged in the grass through a long summer morning and watched without touching while a poppy bud higher than my head slowly but visibly pushed off its cap, unfolded, and shook out like a banner in the sun its flaming vermilion petals.

Seeing their hesitation, I said, `` Well, until I have permission to enter Germany, or a visa to re-enter France, I shall be obliged to remain here on the line between two countries '', whereupon I moved to the side of the road, parked my backpack against the small guardhouse on the sidewalk, sat down, took out my typewriter, and began typing the above conversation.

This man, Tom said, had the play shut up in his desk, I believe, and when Tom sat down, he pulled it out and apologetically told Tom that they wouldn't be able to use it.

I became fifteen, sixteen, then twenty, and still Tessie Alpert sat on the porch with a rose in her hair, and Alfred got richer and sicker with diabetes.

I sat down to wait, and I watched Tessie Alpert, who hadn't moved or said a word but kept staring out of the window.

Once many years ago I sat at dinner next to Arthur Train, and the subject of The Nation came up.

`` I have sat many hours with this, Styka.

I walked to the right around it to buildings containing illuminated manuscripts and came to the Treasury, which houses such things as coffee cups covered with diamonds, jewelled swords, rifles glittering with diamonds and huge divan-like thrones as large as small beds, on which the sultans sat cross-legged.

I sat and watched proceedings.

`` I'll try '', I said, and sat for a moment thinking.

Moreland sat brooding for a full minute, during which I made each of us a new drink.

The last time I saw Bird, at Jimbo's Bob City, he was so gone -- so blind to the world -- that he literally sat down on me before he realized I was there.

I found a parking place half a block away, sat in the car and waited.

I sat where I could watch the exit and realized I was hungry.

I sat there with the faint odor of charcoal-broiled steaks tantalizing my nostrils and occasionally catching the aroma of coffee.

I would have been negligent and a goddam lousy cop to boot, if I'd sat around this station all night when somebody got away with murder in my district.

In the brief moment I had to talk to them before I took my post on the ring of defenses, I indicated I was sickened by the methods men employed to live and trade on the river.

I saw the clergyman kneel for a moment by the twitching body of the man he had shot, then run back to his position.

They, and the two large fans which I could dimly see as daylight filtered through their vents, down at the far end of the hall, could be turned on by a master switch situated inside the office.

This light did not penetrate very far back into the hall, and my eyes were hindered rather than aided by the dim daylight entering through the fan vents when I tried to pick out whatever might be lying, or squatting, on the floor below.

When I asked him what, if anything, I could do about it, he surprised me by referring me to the director of the hall.

I stopped by the counter.

But, by gosh, I want him and I'm going to have him!!

At once my ears were drowned by a flow of what I took to be Spanish, but -- the driver's white teeth flashing at me, the road wildly veering beyond his glistening hair, beyond his gesticulating bottle -- it could have been the purest Oxford English I was half hearing ; ;

I worked for my Uncle ( an Uncle by marriage so you will not think this has a mild undercurrent of incest ) who ran one of those antique shops in New Orleans' Vieux Carre, the old French Quarter.

Sometimes I wondered vaguely what he did about women for my Aunt, by blood, had died some years ago, but neither of us said anything.

True, she was my Aunt, married to an Uncle related to me only by marriage, but why she had married a man twice her age, and more, perhaps, I did not know or much care.

I was puzzled by the remark, then I recalled the voice of mild Professor Howard Griggs three years ago in a university lecture on primitive societies.

Our lifeboat was filling rapidly and despite what I had heard of the inhabitants of Eromonga, I was glad to see a long and graceful outrigger manned by three bronzed girls glide out of a lagoon into the open sea and toward our craft.

My friends and I come from a ship which was destroyed by fire.

In the hut to which I was assigned -- Max had his own quarters -- my food was brought to me by a wrinkled crone with bare drooping breasts who seemed to enjoy conversing with me in rudimentary phrases.

`` I got Margaret Rider in one of them old box cars down there by the quarry ''.

When I question them as to what they mean by concepts like liberty and democracy, I find that they fall into two categories: the simpler ones who have simply accepted the shibboleths of their faith without analysis ; ;

I just can't take any chances on getting her pregnant, and if we were sleeping together ''

`` I saw your fire '', she said, speaking slowly, making an effort to control her anger.

`` I won't force Beth to come against her will.

`` Got a lot to tend to, but I'll get back quick as I can '', he assured her.

`` I've got her as neat as I can '', Donovan said, as he dropped the straps of the Seton harness over Greg's shoulders.

I let up on the accelerator, only to gradually reach again the 60 m.p.h. which would, I hoped, overhaul Herry and the blonde, and as there were cars whose drivers apparently had something more important to catch than had I, Mrs. Major Roebuck settled down to practicing on Corporal Johnson the kittenish wiles she would need when making her duty call on Colonel and Mrs. Somebody in Sante Fe.

How lightly her `` eventshah-leh '' passed into the crannies where I was storing dialect material for some vaguely dreamed opus, and how the word would echo.

I guided her to the divan, turned off the TV, faced her.

She was still hugging the stained coat around her, so I said, `` Relax, let me take your things.

She stood up, pulled the coat from her shoulders and started to slide it off, then let out a high-pitched scream and I let out a low-pitched, wobbling sound like a muffler blowing out.

There had been a good second or two during which my muffler had been blowing out, and now I was certain I'd seen her somewhere before.

She realized I'd have to notify the police, but fervently hoped I could avoid mentioning her name.

But I promised Joyce I would mention her name, if at all, only as a last resort.

I showed her the shower and tub, and she said, smiling, `` If you really don't mind, I think I'll get clean in the shower, then soak for a few minutes in your tub.

One Monday morning I saw him approach the store with a woman and introduce me to her as my new Aunt.

You must forgive me if I seem to dwell too much on her physical aspects but I am an artist, accustomed to studying the physical body.

And that is the way I first saw her when my Uncle brought her into his antique store.