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It was through the criss-crossed shadows of harpoons that Amanita Buntline and Caroline Rosewater now shuffled. Amanita led the way, set the tone, examined the stock greedily, barbarously. As for the nature of the stock: it was everything a cold bitch might demand of an impotent husband upon rising from a scalding bath.

Caroline's manner was a wispy echo of Amanita's. Caroline was made clumsy by the fact that Amanita was forever between her and whatever seemed worth examining. The moment Amanita stopped looking at something, moved from between it and Caroline, the object somehow stopped being worth examining. Caroline was made clumsy by other facts, too, of course—that her husband worked, that she was wearing a dress that everybody knew had been Amanita's, that she had very little money in her purse.

Caroline now heard her own voice saying, as though from afar, "He certainly has good taste."

"They all do," said Amanita. "I'd rather go shopping with one than with a woman. Present company excepted, of course."

"What is it that makes them so artistic?"

"They're more sensitive, dear. They're like us. They feel."

"Oh."

Bunny Weeks now loped into The Jolly Whaler, his Topsiders squeaking as they squeegeed. He was a slender man in his early thirties. He had eyes that were standard equipment for rich American fairies— junk jewelry eyes, synthetic star sapphires with winking Christmas-tree lights behind them. Bunny was the great grandson of the famous Captain Hannibal Weeks of New Bedford, the man who finally killed Moby Dick. No less than seven of the irons resting on the rafters overhead were said to have come from the hide of the Great White Whale.

"Amanita! Amanita!" Bunny cried fondly. He threw his arms around her, hugged her hard. "How's my girl?"

Amanita laughed.

"Something's funny?"

"Not to me."

"I've been hoping you'd come in today. I have a little intelligence test for you." He wanted to show her a new piece of merchandise, have her guess what it was. He hadn't greeted Caroline yet, was now obliged to do so, for she was standing between him and where he thought the object he wanted was. "Excuse me."

"I beg your pardon." Caroline Rosewater stepped aside. Bunny never seemed to remember her name, though she had been in The Weir at least fifty times.

Bunny failed to find what he was looking for, wheeled to search elsewhere, again found Caroline in his way. "Excuse me."

"Excuse me." Caroline, in getting of his way, tripped on a cunning little milking stool, went down with one knee on the stool and both hands grasping a post.

"Oh my God!" said Bunny, annoyed with her. "Are you all right? Here! Here!" He hoisted her up, and did it in such a way that her feet kept slipping out from under her, as though she were wearing roller skates for the first time. "Are you hurt?"

Caroline smiled sloppily. "Just my dignity is all."

"Oh, the hell with your dignity, dear," he said, and he cast himself very strongly as another woman when he said it. "How are your bones? How are your little insides?"

"Fine—thank you."

Bunny turned his back on her, resumed his search.

"You remember Caroline Rosewater, of course," said Amanita. It was a cruelly unnecessary thing to ask.

"Of course I remember Mrs. Rosewater," said Bunny. "Any relation to the Senator?"

"You always ask me that."

"Do I? And what do you always reply?"

"I think so—somehow—way far back—I'm almost sure."

"How interesting. He's resigning, you know."

"He is?"

Bunny faced her again. He now had a box in his hands. "Didn't he tell you he was going to resign?"

"No—he—"

"You don't communicate with him?"

"No," said Caroline bleakly, her chin pulled in.

"I'd think he'd be a very fascinating man to communicate with."

Caroline nodded. "Yes."

"But you don't communicate."

"No."

"Now then, my dear—" said Bunny, placing himself before Amanita and opening the box, "here is your intelligence test." He took from the box, which was marked "Product of Mexico," a large tin can with one