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“Um,” said Robert. He disappeared into the sitting room again, and we heard the couch springs creak.

“You were saying—?” said Marie.

“I was saying it was a rough thing to put him through,” I said to Marie, “but it’ll do him a world of good in the long run. This will eat into him for years, and there’s a good chance he’ll become the first rounded human being in Pisquontuit history. A long, slow, profound double take.”

“Listen,” said Marie. “He’s talking to himself. What’s he saying?”

“Mouse, mouse, mouse,” said Robert. “Mouse, mouse—”

“We’ve lit the fuse,” I whispered, “on a spiritual time bomb.”

“Mouse, man, mouse, man—” said Robert.

“Couple of years from now,” I said, “kaboom!”

“Man!” shouted Robert. “Man, man, man!” He was on his feet, charging out into the hall. “Man!” he said savagely, and he bent Marie over backwards, kissing her hotly. He straightened her up and pulled her after him down the stairs to the second floor.

I followed them down, appalled.

“Robert,” gasped Marie. “Please, what’s going on?”

Robert pounded on his parents’ bedroom door. “You’ll see,” he said. “I’m going to tell all the world you’re mine!”

“Robert—listen,” I said, “maybe you ought to cool off first, and—”

“Aha! The great mouse exposer!” he said wildly. He knocked me down. “How was that for a mouse tap?” He pounded on the door again. “Out of the sack in there!”

“I don’t want to be yours,” said Marie.

“We’ll go out West somewhere,” said Robert, “and raise Herefords or soybeans.”

“I just wanted to go to a Yacht Club dance,” piped Marie fearfully.

“Don’t you understand?” said Robert. “I’m yours!”

“But I’m his,” said Marie, pointing to me. She twisted away from Robert and ran upstairs to her room, with Robert on her heels. She slammed her door and locked it.

I stood slowly, rubbing my bruised cheek.

Mr. and Mrs. Brewer’s bedroom door opened suddenly. Mr. Brewer stood in the doorway, glaring at me, his tongue between his teeth. “Well?” he said.

“I uh—up wupp,” I said. I smiled glassily. “Never mind, sir.”

“Never mind!” he bellowed. “You beat on the door like the world’s coming to an end, and now you say never mind. Are you drunk?”

“Nossir.”

“Well, neither am I,” he said. “My mind’s clear as a bell, and you’re fired.” He slammed the door.

I went back to Robert’s and my suite and began packing. Robert was lying on the couch again, staring at the ceiling.

“She’s packing, too,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I guess you’ll be getting married, eh?”

“Looks that way. I’ll have to find another job.”

“Count your blessings,” he said. “Here, but for the grace of God, lie you.”

“Calmed down, have you?” I said.

“I’m still through with Pisquontuit,” he said.

“I think you’re wise,” I said.

“I wonder,” he said, “if you and Marie would do me a little favor before you leave?”

“Name it.”

“I’d kind of like to dance her down the steps.” Robert’s eyes grew narrow and smoldered again, as they had when I’d surprised him tangoing by himself. “You know,” he said, “like Fred Astaire.”

“You bet,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The volume of the phonograph was turned up high, and all twenty-six rooms of the Brewer cottage pulsed at dawn with the rhythm of the tango.

Robert and Marie, a handsome couple, dipped lowly and twisted their toes as they descended the spiral staircase. I followed with Marie’s and my luggage.

Again Mr. Brewer burst from his bedroom, his tongue between his teeth. “Bubs! What does this mean?”

Robert’s reply to his father’s question, I realize with each job application form I fill out, was unnecessarily heroic. Had we left it unsaid, Mr. Brewer’s attitude toward me might have softened in time. But now, when I write his name down as my last employer, I smear it with the ball of my thumb, hoping that prospective employers will take my honest smile as reference enough.

“It means, sir,” said Robert, “that you should thank my two friends here for raising your son from the dead.”

(illustration credit 11)

BOMAR

There were no windows in the Stockholders