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There was another thunderclap. It raised Diana's voice an octave. "I should have said what that bullfrog said! This ain't such a hot world for Diana Moon Glamperses, neither!"

"Now, now, Diana—now, now," said Eliot. He took a small drink from a bottle of Southern Comfort.

"My kiddleys hurt me all day, Mr. Rosewater. They feel like a red-hot cannonball full of electricity was going through them real slow, and just turning round and round, with poisoned razorblades sticking out of it."

"That can't be very pleasant."

"It ain't."

"I do wish you'd go see a doctor about those darn kidneys, dear."

"I did. I went to Dr. Winters today, just like you told me. He treated me like I was a cow and he was a drunk veterinarian. And when he was through punching me and rolling me all around, why he just laughed. He said he wished everybody in Rosewater County had kiddleys as wonderful as mine. He said my kiddley trouble was all in my head. Oh, Mr. Rosewater, from now on you're the only doctor for me."

"I'm not a doctor, dear."

"I don't care. You've cured more hopeless diseases than all the doctors in Indiana put together."

"Now, now—"

"Dawn Leonard had boils for ten years, and you cured 'em. Ned Calvin had that twitch in his eye since he was a little boy, and you made it stop. Pearl Flemming came and saw you, and she threw her crutch away. And now my kiddleys have stopped hurting, just hearing your sweet voice."

"I'm glad."

"And the thunder and lightning's stopped."

It was true. There was only the hopelessly sentimental music of rainfall now.

"So you can sleep now, dear?"

"Thanks to you. Oh, Mr. Rosewater, there should be a big statue of you in the middle of this town—made out of diamonds and gold, and precious rubies beyond price, and pure uranimum. You, with your great name and your fine education and your money and the nice manners your mother taught you—you could have been off in some big city, riding around in Cadillacs with the highest mucketymucks, while the bands played and the crowds cheered. You could have been so high and mighty in this world, that when you looked down on the plain, dumb, ordinary people of poor old Rosewater County, we would look like bugs."

"Now, now—"

"You gave up everything a man is supposed to want, just to help the little people, and the little people know it. God bless you, Mr. Rosewater. Good night."

6

"NATURE'S LITTLE DANGER SIGNALS—" Senator Rosewater said to Sylvia and McAllister and Mushari darkly. "How many did I miss? All of them, I guess."

"Don't blame yourself," said McAllister.

"If a man has but one child," said the Senator, "and the family is famous for producing unusual, strong-willed individuals, what standards can the man have for deciding whether or not his child is a nut?"

"Don't blame yourself!"

"I have spent my life demanding that people blame themselves for their misfortunes."

"You've made exceptions."

"Damn few."

"Include yourself among the damn few. That's where you belong."

"I often think that Eliot would not have turned out as he has, if there hadn't been all that whoopdee-doo about his being mascot of the Fire Department when he was a child. God, how they spoiled him—let him ride on the seat of the Number One Pumper, let him ring the bell—taught him how to make the truck backfire by turning the ignition off and on, laughed like crazy when he blew the muffler off. They all smelled of booze, of course, too—" He nodded and blinked. "Booze and fire engines—a happy childhood regained. I don't know, I don't know, I just don't know. Whenever we went out there, I told him it was home—but I never thought he would be dumb enough to believe it."

"I blame myself," said the Senator.

"Good for you," said McAllister. "And, while you're at it, be sure to hold yourself responsible for everything that happened to Eliot during World War Two. It's your fault, without a doubt, that all those firemen were in that smoke-filled building."

McAllister was speaking of the proximate cause of