`` That was a terrible thing to do '', I said to Oso.

`` But that was war '', I said.

Still, I was disgusted with myself for agreeing with Montero's methods.

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.

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

Now under me I could see him for what he really was, a boy dressed up in streaks of paint.

Such was my state of mind that I did not question the possibility of this ; ;

under the circumstances I was only too willing to confess all.

I was nearly thirty at the time.

It was dark and, I sensed, very large ; ;

Sometimes I was aware of people moving about in the darkness.

This impressed me, until I realized how limited was his sphere of influence.

I felt certain he was really a spineless little man.

Once, pressing him, I learned that his job was only part-time, in the afternoons when nothing went on in the hall.

In the mornings, I was informed, fluorescent tubes, similar to the one above the counter, illuminated the entire hall.

I was shown, instead, a batch of white tickets of the sort handed out, he told me, every morning.

Now, here was something of obvious importance to me, yet when I reached for the tickets he snatched them away from my hand.

It was, I felt, possible that they were men who, having received no tickets for that day, had remained in the hall, to sleep perhaps, in the corners farthest removed from the counter with its overhead light.

I felt certain it was self-appointed.

I decided to see no more of the clerk until the processing of my papers was completed.

I was constantly searching for clues around the neighborhood of the hall.

I went to the hall in the afternoons only, on these preliminary matters.

Although it was dark as usual I could see that the hall had only recently contained a great many people.

This desire, I went on, growing voluble as my conviction was aroused, had mounted at such a rate recently that I now found its realization necessary not only to my physical but also to my spiritual wellbeing.

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.

The way his red rubber lips were stretched across his pearly little teeth I thought he was only having a little joke, but, no, he wanted me to bend down from the roar of wind so he could roar something into my ear.

Just as I got to my knees, there was again the sound of the fence stretching, and I had time only to start taking my kneeling posture seriously.

Maybe Lou was only unconscious, but right then I thought he must be dead.

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

I said, `` O.K., so now only Blake knows.

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.

`` Nope, just you, all the time -- sometimes I think it's the only way I'll ever get a decent partner ''.

`` I only said I was hungry.

His London contract was rescinded, and now, he explains cheerfully, as a bright smile lightens his intense, mobile face, `` I conduct only one hundred and twenty concerts ''!!

`` Now that Bruno Walter is virtually in retirement and my dear friend Dimitri Mitropoulos is no longer with us, I am probably the only one -- with the possible exception of Leonard Bernstein -- who has this special affinity for and champions the works of Bruckner and Mahler ''.

I was chairman, the only not youthful participant.

The latter in turn assured him that `` were I arraigned at the bar, and you my judge, I should expect to stand or fall only by the merits of my cause ''.

I guess you'd better go on in the morning ''.

`` I've been mucking in a mine in the San Juan, but I used to work on a ranch.

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

`` That quirt -- I ought to use it on you, where it would do the most good.

I don't know what goes on around here, and I don't care.

When one of the men in the hall behind us spat on the floor and scraped his boot over the gob of spittle I noticed how the clerk winced.

) hung on a hook on the wall, and underneath it I could see his tie, knotted, ready to be slipped over his head, a black badge of frayed respectability that ought never to have left his neck.

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.

For although I had crossed a corner of the hall on my way to the toilet I still could not tell for sure how far to the rear the darkness extended.

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.

And I had hardly finished my business in the toilet on the aforementioned occasion when the lights in that place, like the hall lights controlled from the switch in the office, flicked off and on impatiently.