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"I told her," said Eliot, and Mushari's mind, which was equipped with ratchets, declined to accept this evidence, "that I wasn't a religious person by any stretch of the imagination. I told her nothing I did would count in Heaven, but she insisted just the same."

"What will you say? What will you do?"

"Oh—I don't know." Eliot's sorrow and exhaustion dropped away for a moment as he became enchanted by the problem. A birdy little smile played over his lips. "Go over to her shack, I guess. Sprinkle some water on the babies, say, 'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—:

" 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "

8

IT WAS AGREED that night that Eliot and Sylvia should meet for a final farewell in the Bluebird Room of the Marott Hotel in Indianapolis, three nights hence. This was a tremendously dangerous thing for two such sick and loving people to do. The agreement was reached in a chaos of murmurs and whispers and little cries of loneliness that came at the close of the telephone conversation.

"Oh, Eliot, should we?"

"I think we have to."

"Have to," she echoed.

"Don't you feel it—that—that we have to?"

"Yes."

"It's life."

Sylvia wagged her head. "Oh, damn love— damn love."

"This will be nice. I promise."

"I promise, too."

"I'll get a new suit."

"Please don't—not on my account."

"On account of the Bluebird Room, then."

"Good night."

"I love you, Sylvia. Good night."

There was a pause.

"Good night, Eliot."

"I love you."

"Good night. I'm frightened. Good night."

This conversation was a worry to Norman Mushari, who restored the telephone with which he had been eavesdropping to its cradle. It was crucial to his plans that Sylvia not get pregnant by Eliot. A child in her womb would have an unbreakable claim to control of the Foundation, whether Eliot was crazy or not. And it was Mushari's dream that control should go to Eliot's second cousin, Fred Rosewater, in Pisquontuit, Rhode Island.

Fred knew nothing of this, didn't even know for certain that he was related to the Indiana Rosewaters. The Indiana Rosewaters knew about him only because McAllister, Robjent, Reed and McGee, being thorough, had hired a genealogist and a detective to find out who their closest relatives bearing the name Rosewater were. Fred's dossier in the law firm's confidential files was fat, as was Fred, but the investigation had been discreet. Fred never imagined that he might be tapped for wealth and glory.

So, on the morning after Eliot and Sylvia agreed to meet, Fred felt like an ordinary or less-than-ordinary man, whose prospects were poor. He came out of the Pisquontuit Drug Store, squinted in the sunlight, took three deep breaths, went into the Pisquontuit News Store next door. He was a portly man, aslop with coffee, gravid with Danish pastry.

Poor, lugubrious Fred spent his mornings seeking insurance prospects in the drugstore, which was the coffee house of the rich, and the news store, which was the coffee house of the poor. He was the only man in town who had coffee in both places.

Fred bellied up to the news store's lunch counter, beamed at a carpenter and two plumbers sitting there. He climbed aboard a stool, and his great behind made the cushion seem no larger than a marshmallow.

"Coffee and Danish, Mr. Rosewater?" said the not-very-clean idiot girl behind the counter.

"Coffee and Danish sounds real good," Fred agreed heartily. "On a morning like this, by God, coffee and Danish sounds real good."

About Pisquontuit: It was pronounced "Pawn-it" by those who loved it, and "Piss-on-it" by those who didn't. There had once been an Indian chief named Pisquontuit.

Pisquontuit wore an apron, lived, as did his people, on clams, raspberries, and rose hips. Agriculture was news to Chief Pisquontuit. So, for that matter, were wampum, feather ornaments, and the bow and arrow.

Alcohol was the best news of all.