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By Root 7520 0

noticed out of the corner of my eye that it came from France. I began to tear it open. It was from Jean Pierre and it contained a copy of Nous Les Vainqueurs with an extremely Gallic superscription addressed to myself in Jean Pierre's flowing hand. I looked at the book with some emotion. Then I drew out my penknife and opened the first few pages. Before I knew what had happened I had read as far as page five. The impression was startling. Jean Pierre had always been a deft storyteller. But I felt at once that there was more here than deftness. The style had hardened, the manner was confident, the pace long and slow. Something had changed. Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing. I could feel the wind blowing from the first pages of Nous Les Vainqueurs and it blew strongly and tasted fresh. So far,' I said to myself, 'so good.' Something had changed; it would be time enough later on to decide what it was. I looked at Jean Pierre's name on the cover--and felt for the first time that perhaps after all we were entered for the same competition. And as I found myself thinking this thought I shook my head and laid the book aside. I selected next a letter in an unknown hand with an Irish stamp on it. I opened it. There was a brief and nearly illegible note inside. It took me a long time to realize that this letter was from Finn. When I did decipher the signature I felt distressed and shocked. It was an odd fact that I had never before received any communication in writing from Finn. We normally communicated by phone or telegram when we were not together; and indeed some of my friends had once had a theory that Finn couldn't write. What Finn's letter said was the following.

DEAR JAKE,

I am sorry I went off without seeing you. It was just when you were in Paris. I thought it was time to go back then because of the money. You know how I often thought of going back before. I'll be in Dublin now and the Pearl Bar will always find me. I think they forward letters, I haven't got a place to live yet. Hoping to see you when you come over to the Emerald Isle. Remember me to David. yrs P. O'FINNEY This letter upset me extremely and I exclaimed to Mrs Tinckham, 'Finn's gone back to Ireland!'

'I know,' said Mrs Tinck. 'You know?' I cried. 'How?' 'He told me,' said Mrs Tinck. The notion that Finn had made a confidant of Mrs Tinckham came to me for the first time and rushed in an instant from possibility to probability. 'He told you just before he went?' I asked. 'Yes,' said Mrs Tinckham, 'and earlier too. But he must have told you he wanted to go back?' 'He did, now I come to think of it,' I said, 'but I didn't believe him.' And somehow this phrase had a familiar ring. 'I'm a fool,' I said. Mrs Tinckham didn't dispute this. 'Did he have any special reasons for going?' I asked her. I felt pain and indignation at having to ask Mrs Tinckham questions about Finn; but I needed to know. I looked at her old placid face. She was blowing smoke rings; and I knew that she would tell me nothing. 'He just wanted to go home, I suppose,' said Mrs Tinckham. 'I imagine there were people there he wanted to see. And there's always religion,' she added vaguely. I looked down at the table, and I could feel on my brow a gentle pressure which was the gaze of Mrs Tinckham and half a dozen cats. I felt ashamed, ashamed of being parted from Finn, of having known so little about Finn, of having conceived things as I pleased and not as they were. 'Well, he's gone,' I said. 'You'll see him in Dublin,' said Mrs Tinckham. I tried to imagine this; Finn at home and I a visitor. I shook my head. 'I couldn't,' I said. I knew that Mrs Tinckham understood. 'You never know what you won't want to do when the time comes,' said Mrs Tinckham in the vague tone in which she utters those remarks of hers which may be deep counsel or may be senseless. I looked up at her quickly. The wireless murmured on and the cigarette smoke drifted between us like a veil, shifting its layers very gently