`` 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 mean, we don't have any way to get there and we can't expect you to quit work just to take us to town ''.

There's someone there I have to see.

For weeks I wandered about this neighborhood of warehouses and garages, truck terminals and taxi repair shops, gasoline pumps and longshoremen's lunch counters, yet never did I cease to feel myself a stranger there.

`` I can't leave him there.

`` Might get there faster walkin' '', Lord drawled, `` seein' as how I got a busted front spring.

But there's one thing I never seen or heard of, one thing I just don't think there is, and that's a sportin' way o' killin' a man ''!!

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.

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.

I had come to New Orleans two years earlier after graduating college, partly because I loved the city and partly because there was quite a noted art colony there.

Of course, males play a role there, but believe me when I say you wouldn't enjoy yourself one bit on Eromonga.

I saw a dozen or so other outriggers moored there.

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

Besides I heard her old uncle that stays there has been doin' it ''.

I suspect that there are far more unreconstructed ones than the North likes to believe.

I consider it the center of the world and make it a point to be there once a year ''.

I am certainly not adequately trained to describe or enlarge on human fears, but there are certain features of the fears dispelled by scientific explanations that stand out quite clearly.

`` What I am saying does not mean that there will henceforth be no form in art.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Gray Eyes rushing at me with a knife.

I would turn away from my writing in the hope of getting a good look at them but I never quite succeeded.

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.

By counting the number of stalls and urinals I attempted to form a loose estimate of how many men the hall would hold at one time.

I could observe the two fans down at the end, but their size in themselves meant nothing to me as long as I had no measure of comparison.

No sooner would I turn my head away from the counter before he would address me, at times quite sharply, in order to bring back my attention.

I felt strongly attached to the hall, however, and hardly a day passed when I did not go to look at it from a distance.

My future lay solely with the hall, yet what did I know about the hall at this point??

I was at once disappointed, although just what I had expected him to look like I could not have explained.

What sort of men I would come into contact with, at the hall??

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 would have foregone my romantic chances rather than leave a friend sweltering and dusty and -- Well, at least I wouldn't have shouted back a taunt.

I was again in motion and at a speed which belied the truck's similarity to Senor X's Ford turtle.

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 ; ;