A For Anything

5

The Upper Hall was crowded and stifling with noise. Women "in clouds of chiffon and in bags of tweed, some with cheeks rouged in two staring disks, like dolls, others with honest country faces reddened by nothing but food, wine and fresh air, were complaining about the trip, fussing after children, nervously bowing when they encountered each other, like hens uncertain of whom to peck. Slobs were scuttling this way and that under mountainous loads of personal luggage -- favorite tennis rackets, windbreakers, lounging robes, collapsible sedan chairs, all manner of unexpected and unsightly things. There were more children than ever, some with runny noses, some airsick, some running zigzags through the crowd, some sitting on the floor and howling. And the men themselves, all the lesser persons of the Poconos and surrounding areas, were stalking stiff-legged here and there with sidelong glances, conspicuously armed, pricking up their fierce mustaches, like dogs in a strange kennel.

Dick glimpsed his father in the middle of a cigar-smoking group. He edged past. "Wanted to wait for her second heat to breed her, but ... " "What do you think of this? (Here, boy, hand that case over.) Nice little needle-gun -- the Chassepot design, 1870. Old Flack traded it to me for two Black Labradors and a kitchen wench with a mole on her hip ... " " ... as it happens, the only copies of these particular daily strips known to be in existence. Not many people have even heard of The Bungles, but to my mind ... "

That was his father, bright-eyed and flushed, the way he got when he talked about 20th-century newspaper comics. Tons of them, he had, all laminated in sheets of clear plastic and filed away, each in its wall slot, in the Comics Room; he had been collecting them since he was a boy. He saw Dick, nodded absently, and went on talking. " ... for ironic commentary, the real heart of that age, you have to study The Bungles. Incidentally, I don't suppose you know that Tuthill simply quit drawing the strip one day, when he felt tired of it. It ended there and then; no other artist took it over. Remarkable, when you remember how frantic everyone was for money ... "

Dick's father, the fourth Man of Buckhill, was slender and not tall, fine-featured, rather delicately made, with a fair complexion. He was strong and agile, however, and his lack of commanding height never seemed to enter his mind. He ruled Buckhill firmly and efficiently; there was no better-run estate in the East.

George Jones of Twin Lakes, the Man's younger brother, seemed to have come from another stock altogether. He was tall and heavy-boned, with a brutish jaw and brow. He had grown fatter in the last few years, and now had an imposing stomach under the green brocade of his vest. Seeing the two brothers together, at first glance you would have thought George the older. His features had a faintly MacDonaldian heaviness, which he emphasized by combing his coarse hair, already sprinkled with an iron gray, into a forelock.

"Be reasonable, Fred," he was saying as Dick came up. "You're rated at five hundred able bucks counting the guard, and I know for a fact you're at least a hundred over; It's disgraceful -- you ought to have been drowning newborns five years ago, to teach 'em a lesson."

Dick's father shook his head decisively. "I would never do that, George. Not even to a slave."

"Well, then, you'd better start lopping their trigger fingers, then, that's all there is of it. I'm telling you for your own benefit, Fred, you're too soft with 'em. You may think you can just go on like this forever, but sooner or later the Boss is going to send an inspector around, and then you'll be in the s-o-u-p, soup."

Dick moved on restlessly. He had heard it all a hundred times before, and had expected to hear it all a hundred times again. A month or so ago, guest days, except for a few pleasurable aspects, had been a pain in the scut. Now he found himself listening and watching with an irritable hunger; it gave him no enjoyment, but he couldn't take his attention away.

There was a familiar shape, little Echols of Scaroon with his big stomach wrapped in a scarlet cummerbund, cigar in one hand and champagne glass in the other. He was not an esthetic sight by any means, but he turned up at every party in the district; and it struck Dick with a curious pang that he was not going to see that cummerbund any more -- not for four years, perhaps not for ever.

Another figure moved toward him through the crowd: one that he recognized without pleasure. It was his cousin Cashel, Uncle George's only son. Cashel, two years older than Dick, was a louring, bullet-headed youth with dusty-black hair. He and Dick had fought in childhood as a matter of course each time the families met. No friendship had come out of the fighting, as might have happened. As they had grown older they'd learned to tolerate each other, but their mutual dislike was ingrained. Dick thought Cashel sullen and malicious, as well as ugly. He was aware that Cashel deeply resented being the eldest son of a cadet line; he coveted Buckhill, for all the wrong reasons.

But as the heir, Dick shared the duties of a host. "Hello, Cash," he said, putting out his hand. "Good you could come, and so on." They shook hands stiffly, and let go with enthusiasm: "Uh, Can I get you anything?" Dick asked. "Washroom's in the alcove there, if you want to go."

"No thanks, I've been," Cashel said, too promptly. His expression showed, an instant later, that he wished he had taken the excuse to leave. "I'm a little thirsty," he added hopefully.

Shackled by courtesy, Dick could only say, "Champagne? Tokay? Ale?" and put out an arm to snag a passing waiter, "Claret?" he went on, as Cashel hesitated. "Port? Riesling?"

"No Riesling, misser," said the waiter, shuffling the bottles on his cart.

"Riesling," Cashel said decisively. "Yes, I guess Riesling. Well, I suppose there's another waiter around here somewhere -- " He started to move away.

The phrasing was unfortunate; Dick bristled. "I guess there are one or two," he said emphatically. "Just wait a minute, won't you?" He glared at Cashel briefly, then used the same expression on the unhappy waiter, who winced, bobbed his head, and trundled rapidly away into the crowd.

Dick and Cashel stared uncomfortably over each other's head until he came back. With him was a second waiter, pushing a similar cart. The second waiter uncorked a bottle of straw-colored wine and hastily poured two glasses, handing one to Cashel, one to Dick.

"Riesling," said Dick coldly.

Cashel accepted his. "Just what I was wanting," he said with false heartiness. He sipped at it. "This isn't bad, really."

"Only Rudesheimer," said Dick, indifferently. "I might be able to find you some of the Mohawk '75, if you want."

"No, no. This is fine."

They stared at each other blankly for a moment, holding the glasses. It was dawning on both of them that they had got themselves into a position from which neither could gracefully retreat. Cashel made a gesture as if to gulp down his wine, but checked it, to Dick's relief: that would only have meant that as host, Dick would have had to force another glass on him, and as guest, Cashel would have had to drink it.

"Oh, hell," said Dick finally. "Look, Cashel, we both have ... our private opinion of each other, but that doesn't mean we can't stand each other for half an hour, does it? Come on, let's listen to some music."

This was a major concession: he meant Dixieland, a form of noise to which Cashel was addicted, but which made Dick as restless as a turpentined hound. Cashel brightened perceptibly. "Fair enough!"

They turned toward the inner rooms. On the way, Dick dropped his barely-tasted wineglass into the nearest glory hole, and Cashel followed suit.

The mass of people was beginning to break up and scatter. Everywhere, as they walked deeper into the house, they found small groups: some looking over the collections and trophies, some watching TV or movies, or sitting down to card tables; some eating and drinking, some chalking pool cues, leafing through books, pinching serving girls; some already drunk and singing; some talking in clusters, some amiably wandering.

Dick found the musicians he was looking for in one of the smaller lounges; they were playing 20th-century ballads to half a dozen men and women, none of them listening.

Dick caught the leader's eye. He was a grizzled oldster named Bucky Williams; like all the musicians, he had been born on the estate and trained by his predecessor. Some people considered this kind of thing a waste of time -- it was a lot simpler to make a prote of whatever artist you had, and dupe another of him when the first wore out -- but Dick's father had a prejudice against duping slobs.

"Dixielan'?" said Bucky. "Yes, sir." He exchanged glances with the other four. The reed men poised their lips, the piano player and the drummer unrolled an aimless little rhythm, and then, as far as Dick was concerned, the five of them began to emit independent cacophonies. There was an old-fashioned tune mixed in somewhere, but each time one of the players stumbled across it, the others seemed to feel they could safely leave it alone. Dick sat and suffered through the first paroxysm, and the second, and the third.

He was feeling thoroughly purged, but sticking grimly to it, when the most welcome of all sounds overrode the combo's music. "The small arms competition is about to begin," said the room's built-in loudspeaker. "Contestants assemble at the range, if you please. The first event will be rifle, open, free style, fifty and one hundred yards."

A hum and rustle went up, all through the adjacent rooms. There were jubilant whoops and running footsteps in the hall -- collisions, curses, and over everything the angry droning of scores of body-slobs' call buzzers. Dick took out his own signal box and pressed the button, but the response light did not glow. Probably Sam was too far away; the little wave-senders had a range of only about a hundred and fifty yards ... Or it might be that the sender had plonked out sooner than usual. This model had a bug in it that no one had ever identified, and was commonly good for about three weeks before it quit. In any case, he had a ready-made excuse to part company with Cashel, all at once and in a hurry. With a curt nod to his enemy, Dick plunged into the corridor and worked his way against the stream of guests back to the escalator.

He found Sam without any trouble, down in the Big Hall where he had been pressed into service hanging decorations. Grinning with relief, the slob went off for Dick's gun cart.

The Hall was now almost ready, the walls banked proudly with hybrid blossoms from Dunleavy's gardens; each linen-covered table with its floral centerpiece, gleaming with crystal and silver under the chandeliers. The musicians were tuning up in their alcove; the waiters stood nervously in a clump near the kitchen doors, while Perse the major-domo and two head waiters went dancing from table to table, adjusting a goblet here, straightening a napkin there. Dick's earlier meals seemed to have melted away; he discovered a hollow place inside him, and filched a handful of nuts from the sideboard to fill it.

Then Sam was back with the cart. Dick checked its contents as they went: Marlin carbine, .375 Winchester, Remington 10, the Schloss over-and-under 12 -- a hand-made unique, with the "do wot dupe" plate in its stock -- the Mannlicher-Schoenauer .308, and rounds for all of them; the five-foot trophy stick; the scopes and binoculars in their padded clips; the Ruger .22 target pistol, .38 S. & W. everyday gun, Colt .45, and their ammunition. The bores looked clean, to a cursory inspection, but there was a spot of rust on the Remington's barrel. He made a mental note: time to junk the lot, except for the hand-made, and get dupes from Possum. He buckled on the everyday gun in its holster, out of habit: he was used to the weight on his hip when he was shooting, or going to shoot with any weapon.

Nearly all the male guests were ahead of them; they passed through schools of more leisurely females, drifting in little cheerful clumps and gossiping as they went -- their kindly faces aglow with liqueurs and sociability -- and a scattering of stray children, dogs and mislaid servants. But there was plenty of time still: the grandstand above the rifle range was less than a quarter filled, and most of the young men were standing about in picturesque attitudes on the hillside, each negligently holding his trophy stick with its incised bands of white, yellow and red. Some of the youngest, particularly those whose trophy sticks were bare, were engaging in impromptu contests of their own -- wrestling, slapping, boxing, judo, broad-jumping, spitting, tumbling, knife throwing and the like. Farther up the slope, the governesses had corraled several dozen of the small children and were trying to keep them occupied in ring-around-the-rosy, as usual without much luck: tiny voices raised in glee and anger came piping through the murmur of the crowd.

They passed the Rev. Dr. Hamper, squatting on a hillock, hands clasped below his ecclesiastical knees, head bent, smiling around his pipe as he listened to the visiting Americo-Catholic priest from Fontainebleau. It was the general feeling at Buckhill that Hamper was a mediocre chaplain, his predecessor the Rev. Dr. Morningside being remembered as a model of succinct eloquence; but he was the best natural-born Episcopalian minister Buckhill could get -- so many were being duped by the big Eastern families that naturals were growing very scarce.

There was an outbreak of yelping and snarling up ahead. Through the gathering crowd, Dick caught sight of the two dogs, one a handsome collie, the other a cur -- a grotesque mongrel, part St. Bernard, part Doberman, by the look of him, and part God only knew what. Pressed into the wide circle as it formed, Dick and the slob watched with interest. It was a good fight, as far as it went; but when it seemed the collie was getting the worst of it, a man in green blouse and knee-breeches stepped up and fired a handgun. The collie broke away, startled. The cur was writhing, shot through the hindquarters. The green man aimed carefully and shot him again in the head.

The body kicked once and was still. The crowd began to disperse. As he left with Sam, Dick glanced back and saw a distasteful sight: a small slob-boy dressed in the Buckhill colors, kneeling with his head on the dead dog's chest, and a tray of drinks spilled beside him on the grass.

Well, if the slobs wanted to keep pets, and let them breed at will, what could you do? Down on the flat, the band was beginning to blare "Buckhill Forever"; it was time to get on the line.

The range was almost filled; some of the other first contestants were already firing, and the bitter tang of smokeless powder drifted across. Dick carelessly took the first vacant place, and discovered when it was too late that Cashel was his neighbor. Cash looked around at the same moment, and they stared at each other with helpless distaste; then Cash shrugged and turned away, saying something to his body-slob.

The breeze was light, from nine o'clock. Sam handed him the loaded carbine. Beside him, Cash fired and a voice called, "Ten!"

Dick nodded to the slob at the TV monitor, took his stance and fired. "Ten!" called the slob.

Spah! went Cashel's gun at his ear, and the slob called, "Nine!"

Dick fired again. "Seven!" Not so good, but he'd make it up. He was a better shot than Cash, always had been.

Not today, though. Something in the noisy crowd, or maybe in the morning's frustrations, seemed to have thrown him off. Cash was lining up a good series of tens and nines, while Dick, though he squeezed off each shot with care, was shooting unevenly. "Seven," called the monitor slob. "Nine ... seven ... seven ... " There was an embarrassed pause. "Miss."

A miss, at fifty yards, with his own carbine! Mortification overwhelmed him; he wanted to sink through the shooter's stand, or wrap his gun-barrel around the TV monitor and stalk away. What wouldn't Blashfield say to him on Monday! ...

But there wasn't going to be any Monday: there, he'd forgotten again. Abruptly the sun-warmed cloth over his shoulderblades was no longer pleasant; the carbine had turned to a dead stick of metal in his hands. What was he doing here in a silly picnic shoot, when he ought to be using his last minutes at Buckhill saying good-bye to the lake, or the pheasant woods, or down at the stables ... ?

"Ten!" said Cashel's monitor slob, cheerfully.

Dick glanced over involuntarily, and saw Cashel's gloomy face illuminated by an oafish pleasure. His hands began to shake and his mouth went dry. It seemed to him that the one thing that could give him satisfaction would be to trample that face and kick dirt over it ...

Trembling, he turned away. He knew he had a temper; he got it from his mother's family -all the Dabney men were quarrelsome and short-lived. "If y' want for die in you bed," Blashfield kept telling him, "you'll have to watch y' temper, or either be twice the man of y' guns as y' be."

Somehow he got through the first event, with a score just above the worst duffer's. The second went no better, although he took care to put plenty of distance between himself and) Cash. Afterward, he went past the scoreboard with only a glance. He didn't see his own name, but Cash's was conspicuous, just under the first ten.

His bad luck still held: the pause was just long enough for Cashel himself to blunder out of the crowd and fall into step beside him. All the guests were drifting back toward the house now; with no excuse to break away, they plodded along dumbly together.

Finally Cash said, "By the way, Dick -- "

"Yes?"

Cashel licked his lower lip, looking uncomfortable. "About tomorrow -- " he said, and stopped.

Dick turned aside impatiently to pass a gossiping group of matrons. "What about tomorrow?"

"I mean," said Cash, following, "about you going to Colorado, and so on."

Dick looked at him.

"I mean," Cash said, with a final burst of candor, "about you going instead of me. I mean it's all right."

Dick stared at him speechlessly for a moment; then his fists clenched and his neck grew swollen. He closed his jaws tight. It was no good: he couldn't contain it. "Oh, go to hell!" he shouted. He made an impotent gesture, whirled and Strode away.

After a moment Cashel caught up with him. His long face had turned pale. "Look, Dick, you had no call to talk to me that way -

"Leave me alone," said Dick with difficulty. "Will you? Will you do that, old man?"

"Look, Dick -- "

"You look!" said Dick, exasperated beyond reason. "Everywhere I go, I see your slobby face! Mush off! Flap!"

Cashel stood there with his white face, and his heavy hands hanging, and said, "Dick, apologize." Dick turned away without answering. Cashel did not follow him.

The house was filling up again; some of the guests were streaming downstairs for the bowling tournament, some gathering for cards and dice. Dick prowled purposefully through the house, glancing into each game room and lounge. In the Upper Hall he ran into his mother, serenely promenading with a group of ladies in flustered hats. She saw him before he could get clear.

"Dick, is something the matter?" She put her palm against his cheek, ignoring his attempt to pull away. "You're feverish, darling."

"It's hot out in the open," said Dick.

"Ladies," she said without turning, "I think you know my son Richard."

Unmoved in the chorus of "Oh, yes," "My, how you've grown," and "Aren't you a lucky young man," she fixed him with a clear, ironic gaze. Dick's mother was a tall blonde woman, majestically built like all the Dabneys. Her features were too strong for beauty -- Dick and Constance both resembled her, which, Dick privately thought, was a good thing for himself, and a pity for Con -- but in her bearing and manner she was the perfect embodiment of the ideal big-house wife. She was as brave as a man. In her maiden days, it was said, she had once struck down a crazed slob with a mashie, and then resumed her game as calmly as if there had been no interruption.

Now she said, "Of course, if you're sure -- "

Dick finished his dutiful nods and bows to her companions. Feeling acutely uncomfortable, he said. "It may not be anything. I have to talk to Dad first -- do you know where he is?"

"Try the den."

Her hand touched his shoulder as she moved away, and then her clear voice was receding down the Hall: " ... this wing, as you know, was rebuilt by my husband's father in the nineties ..."

Dick went on, moving faster. The elevators were all busy with guests, so he took the escalator to the top floor, and then climbed the tower stair. In the cool, leather-smelling dimness of the vestibule, he knocked at the carved ebony door, then entered.

His father was seated behind a glass-topped ebony desk, narrow head bent. He glanced up from the letter he held in his hand. "Yes, Dick?" he said. "Sit down; I'll be just a moment."

Dick sat on the broad window seat that followed the curve of the tower. From here, looking down the south slope, he could see the early sun glinting off the speedboat lake. The red stable roofs showed above the trees, and beyond that, the gray hunched bulk of the old fortifications. Vine-grown and crumbling now, they had encircled the whole estate in Dick's grandfather's time -- three levels of steel and concrete, with walls fifteen feet thick in places, and a moat that once could have been filled with fuming acid in ten minutes. The first Jones had been a cautious man who believed that attack on Buckhill, if it ever got beyond the stage of small aircraft raids, would come as a mass attack of foot soldiery.

Nobody, as it happened, had ever attacked Buckhill at all. (As a child, Dick had always imagined that his grandfather must have died a disappointed man.) Most of the fortifications had got in the way of one thing or another in later years, and been pulled down; this one piece was all that was left. There hadn't been even a local war in twice Dick's lifetime ...

He turned to look at his father, erect in the carved ebony chair that seemed to belong to him, though its thick arms made his seem spindling. A faint, cool light played on his head from the prism in the skylight, twenty feet above; around the skylight well, tier on tier of bookshelves went up, heavy grave-looking volumes of rich red and brown leather, tooled and stamped. The windows were shut; the air was heavy with the odors of paper, leather, tobacco, polished wood. If it were my room, Dick thought involuntarily, I'd open all the windows and let the wind blow through ...

His father glanced at him, folded the letter and sat back, taking a thin hunting-case watch from his vest. He opened it, snapped it shut again. "All right, Dick, what is it?"

Dick said, "I think Cashel's going to try to get permission to call me out."

He braced himself, without quite knowing why; but the Man said only, "Tell me about it."

Dick did so, as briefly as he could, ending: "When I got back to the house I saw Cash once more, and I think he saw me. But he went on by. He had a kind of a look on his face."

"Yes?"

"He looked as if he'd made up his mind."

The Man nodded, looking tired and thoughtful. He spread the papers on his desk idly, then pushed them aside. "It's awkward, Richard. I suppose there's no doubt that you provoked him, not the other way around?"

Dick hesitated. "No, I guess not," he said unwillingly.

"I'm not asking for explanations, or exhibitions of penitence," said his father precisely. "Nor am I going to give you a lecture. You were armed, you provoked a quarrel. When I gave you permission to wear a handgun, I tacitly agreed to treat you as a man in matters of personal honor. I am going to do so. If this challenge is made -- " The telephone rang.

The Man answered it. "Yes. Very well, send them up." He put the receiver back. "When the challenge is made," he said "I'll do everything I can as the head of your family ... I assume you do wish me to act for you?"

Dick swallowed hard. "Yes, please, Dad."

"Very well. If you wish any advice, I will of course give it. But I think the choice is fairly clear. You fight, or back down."

"Yes, mister," said Dick, moistening his lips. He felt bewildered and, to be absolutely honest, a little scared, but one thing he was sure of: he was not going to make the Man ashamed of him.

After a considerable time, the door opened and Uncle George entered. Behind him were his brother-in-law, Uncle Floyd Logan, and a cousin of Aunt Jo Anne's named Alec Brubaker. Uncle Floyd was older than the rest, a dark paunchy man with bad teeth. Cousin Alec was fair skinned, wispy and nervous. Last of all came Cashel, looking sullen.

Dick's father looked them over coolly. "I think you'll find that settee comfortable, if a trifle crowded," he said. "Dick, bring a chair for Cashel." Uncle George's choleric flush was a shade deeper when he spoke. "Fred, I'm afraid you misunderstood -- this matter is private."

The Man raised an eyebrow. "So? But your son Cashel is present."

"Cashel is the injured party."

"If one of my family has injured him," the Man said dryly, "I don't suppose it was my wife or daughter, and my other sons are all too young to give serious offense. That leaves Richard, if I am not mistaken."

Uncle George nodded. "Well, Fred, it is Dick."

"Then he had best stay. And since you have brought your other relations -- " The Man pressed the buzzer on his desk.

"It's a family affair, Fred," said Uncle George.

"Just so." To the slob who appeared in the desk screen, the Man said, "Go and find Mr. Orville Dabney and Mr. Glenn Dabney, and ask them to be so kind as to join us here." The picture clicked off. The Man looked coolly at his guests without speaking. The silence grew.

At length Dick's two maternal uncles came in, looking grim and wary: tall blond men both, crag-faced, with fierce blue eyes and hairy hands. Orville Dabney, the elder, was known for his habit of tossing men over his head when provoked, and worrying about protocol afterward. Glenn Dabney, who wore a thick curling mustache, was shorter and quieter, but no less dangerous. The lobe of his right ear was missing -- shot off, it was said, in a duel he had fought with a visiting Cornishman in his youth.

The Man greeted them formally, invited them to sit. The little room grew crowded and hot.

The Man opened the humidor on his desk and passed it around. While the men were cutting and lighting their cigars, he put his fingertips together and quietly began to speak.

After a moment, Dick realized that he was rehearsing the whole history of the Jones, Dabney and Logan families, from the Turnover up. He saw hands poised in mid-air and surprised expressions around the room as the same belated realization struck the others; then they were all silent and attentive. It was a matter of family pride to listen to that story, but not only that: as the Man told it, the story itself was fascinating.

One after another, the leading figures of all three families were sketched in -- Jeremy Logan, who had fought the Morganists at Pimple Hill and Big Pocono; Fabrique deForest Dabney, the founder of the line, whom the family slobs still claimed to see on moonlit nights, riding like a demon and dressed in nothing but his famous white beard; Edward R. Jones and his single-handed conquest of Buckhill.

As he listened, although he knew the story by heart, Dick grew aware as never before, not only how proud a record his family had, but how precarious a thing it was.

The first Jones had taken Buckhill away from the former holder by what amounted to a low trick -- disguising himself as a slob to enter the house, and throwing old August Boyle out of his own bedroom window. That was colorful family history now, but if the same thing happened over again today, it would be a crime.

Then there was the third Man of Buckhill, Edward's brother Leonard A. Jones, who had taken over the house when Edward died in a riding accident -- and whom the present Man had had to challenge and kill, in order to get his rights when he returned from Colorado. Power was a delicate thing, the story seemed to say; those who had it must hold it firmly but carefully -- must cherish it, and be wise.

"And Frederick begat Richard, and George begat Cashel," murmured Dick's father. "The rest of the story, I believe, is yours, George."

Silence fell. The eyes of the company turned to look at Uncle George, who straightened, sighed regretfully, and planted both heavy hands on his knees. "Fred, and you men, here's the whole thing in a nutshell. My boy Cashel came to me a little while ago and said, 'Dad, I want your permission to fight a duel with Dick.' Well, I was shocked. I said, 'Why, what's he done?' 'Called me a slob,' he said." Uncle George looked around the room in an open, manly fashion. "Men, I tried to be fair. I said, 'Cashel, what did you do to provoke a statement like that from your cousin?' He looked me in the eye and said, 'Dad, I only wished him good luck in going to Eagles in Colorado.'"

Dick felt hot and cold by turns. He shifted his weight on the window seat until a glance from his father warned him to be still. Diagonally across the room, he was aware of Cashel staring miserably at his own hands.

Uncle George, gathering confidence as he went along, was saying. "I told him, I said, 'A duel isn't a thing you rush into, especially between blood relations,' but I told him, 'We'll go and talk to your Uncle Fred. I know he'll want to do what's fair.'" He leaned back and spread his hands. "So, men, here we fare."

After a long moment, Uncle Orville spoke. "Let's hear the other side of it."

"The offense was given," said Dick's father at once. "We admit that, to save argument."

Orville nodded and sat back.

Uncle Floyd said, "Then there's just three ways about it. Either the one cub withdraws, or the other apologizes, or they fight."

They all chewed on that in silence for a moment. Uncle Orville and Uncle Glenn exchanged glances with each other and with the Man. As if some intelligence had passed among them, Uncle Orville turned and asked, "Will you let your boy challenge, or not?"

Uncle George looked ruffled. "That's not an easy decision to make. If we get an apology, of course -- "

"First things first," said Uncle Orville briskly.

Uncle Floyd put in, "That don't mean we can't discuss it beforehand. The question is, Fred: if our boy withdraws, will yours apologize?"

All eyes turned on the Man expectantly. To Dick's surprise, he said merely, "Ask my son."

Before Dick could speak -- indeed, before he had any idea what to say -- Uncle Floyd burst out, "Wait a minute, Fred. You can't put it up to the boy, he's under age."

"I can, and will," said the Man.

The Jones-Logan men seemed to consult one another with a glance. Uncle George said gravely, "Fred, you don't seem to realize. A duel is a serious matter."

"So is an apology."

There were assenting murmurs from the Dabneys, and, reluctantly, even from Uncle Floyd and Cousin Alec.

"What do you say, George?" Cousin Alec asked.

"I want satisfaction," Uncle George muttered.

Orville leaned forward. "Mean y'll let him challenge?"

"I didn't say that," Uncle George retorted. "I haven't made up my mind." He turned angrily to the Man. "You're not giving me much accommodation, Fred."

The Man did not reply.

"All right, now here's what it comes to," Uncle George said after a moment. He leaned forward to look directly at Dick. "Dick, if we should agree to withdraw, will you apologize?"

Out of the corner of his eye Dick could see his father's attentive face. The Man did not move nor make any sign, but some instinct prompted Dick to suppress the answer that occurred to him.

He said, "I'll have to wait till the time comes to decide that, Uncle George."

There was a stir as the men sat back in their places. "That puts it in your lap, George," said Uncle Orville with a grim smile.

Uncle George was scowling, and his face was dark; a vein swelled over one eye. Uncle Floyd was smiling a sour smile around his cigar; Cousin Alec was gnawing a thumbnail, his yellowish eyes turned up toward Uncle George like a hound's.

In the silence, the chiming of bells came faintly to them up the tower stair. "That will be the banquet call," said Dick's father, opening his watch. He clicked it shut precisely and put it away in his pocket. "Shall we go down, then, and leave this discussion until later?"

Uncle George glanced at his kinsmen briefly. He hesitated, then grunted and rose. "All right with me."

The others got up and moved toward the door. Was that all? Was it really over so quickly?

The disappointed slope of Uncle George's shoulders seemed to say that it was.

Up and down the Big Hall, in a ceaseless hum and shuffle of feet, the guests were taking their places. The orchestra was playing something bland and tuneful, with chimes in it; slobs were everywhere, guiding guests, holding chairs, serving cocktails and wine.

The narrow family table stood at the head of the room, slightly raised; places were laid only on one side, so that no one had his back to the guests. Dick found himself seated next to his father and mother, among the adults. It seemed a long way down from this eminence to his former place at the end of the table, from which Adam and the others were peering worshipfully up at him.

The other half of the table, as usual, was occupied by Uncle George and his family -- as effectively concealed from Dick, where he sat, as if they had been all the way across the room.

Savory odors drifted in from the kitchen. Slobs at the service tables in the corner were pouring more cocktails from gigantic shakers. Soup tureens came down the aisles in silvery flotillas, gallons of soup, soup enough to drown a man, all fragrantly steaming.

It was, Dick discovered, mock turtle -- his favorite. The whole banquet seemed to have been decently planned to suit his tastes, in fact. As he picked up his spoon, the Man's voice said, "How much have you eaten today, Dick?"

Dick stared at him. The Man's neat, small features were serious, as always. "Well, breakfast -- ham and eggs -- -.and then I had a piece of cheese and some milk around lunch time. And some nuts. Why?"

"Eat sparingly now," said the Man. "You may have a little soup and some game. No fowl, no fish, no seafood, no pastry. And no wine. Pretend to be eating more than you are. Is that clear?"

Dick's mouth fell to watering.

"Do you understand?" his father insisted.

His own mouth sounded thick. "I suppose so." This was really too much -- his own farewell banquet! Oh, damn! "But Dad -- "

"Yes?"

"I thought the duel was all off."

"What gave you that impression?"

Dick floundered. "Well, I don't know -- "

"It may be off. I venture to hope so. But meanwhile, you will take the precautions I mentioned."

The noise was such that he could barely make out the words. Tumblers, traded for the occasion from a Canadian connection of the Dabneys', came whirling down the bare center table, pinwheels of red and yellow tights; they unwound, leaped, bowed, and became jugglers. One of them, the tall fellow, unaccountably stumbled and dropped a red rubber ball, which bounced into Mitchel Krauss's soup. Krauss stood up with a howl of wrath and flung a wine bottle at the slob. Struck fair in the ribs, the fellow toppled, off balance, and fell kicking in the aisle. Mirth exploded around him; Krauss and his crony Roscoe Burns clinked glasses, splattering themselves and their fat wives, already choking with laughter.

Off to the right, an even merrier din arose from the slobs' table, where the Rev. Dr. Hamper, Padgett, Blashfield and Dr. Scope presided over the upper servants.

The remaining two tumblers finished their act and went off. Dick noticed the one who had fallen being carried out -- in pain, by the look of him. Probably he had broken a rib or two. That showed you Krauss's lack of consideration, but then, everybody knew he treated his own slobs the same way.

The soup was followed by game and Burgundy, with highballs for those who wanted them. Under the lights, the centerpieces steadily wilted. The faces of the waiters as they hurried by were gray with fatigue, sweat-streaked. The diners' faces gleamed with grease and exertion; their mouths opened to roar with laughter, and closed around gobbets of rich hot meat, potatoes and gravy, savory Brussels sprouts, artichokes in hollandaise sauce, slices of cranberry jelly. Little Echols choked, barked, turned purple, and was heartily thumped on the back. At the younger tables there was a good deal of bun-throwing, and fencing with bunches of celery. Several small children, screaming with rage, had to be led off in disgrace by governesses.

Dick ate a little of the venison, as ordered, and put it aside; he left the wineglass untouched. The next course was pheasant, with a golden Rhine wine -- probably the Mohawk, he thought bitterly. The serving slob, who was some kind of relative of the chef's, gave Dick a reproachful look as he cleared away the plates.

Then came domestic meats -- duped, of course; nobody kept herds any more -- with a claret. Then seafood, with a sauterne. Dick's father touched his arm and nodded toward Uncle Orville. When Dick had attracted his attention, the Man said to them both, "Cashel is not eating. He has had nothing since the soup."

Uncle Orville nodded and turned away. Dick's mouth was suddenly dry.

The meal dragged on. The room, the diners, everything had taken on a dreamlike quality. Time was stifled. Course succeeded course with maddening slowness, and Dick carved the meat, chopped at vegetables with his fork, picked up his wineglass and set it down. The Buckhill Players, who in everyday life were body slobs, secretaries and the like, came on with a skit called "The Expert Eye"; Dick had seen it in rehearsal, and had thought it hilariously funny, but now it seemed vulgar and dull. Singers followed, then the magician, and then a pair of clowns -- new ones; Uncle Glenn had brought them up from Newcastle. Heat waves swam under the ceiling; the sherbets began to melt almost as soon as they were set down.

Then the last of the long line of glasses was being filled with champagne; Uncle Orville, on Dick's right, rose to give the first toast.

"To the boy that's leaving us tomorrow -- to spend four years away from his own fireside -- learning good manners and wickedness -- " Uncle Orville snorted. "May he come back none the worse for it -- young Dick Jones!"

All over the room, the bright wineglasses winked as they swung up in salute. There were more toasts, endlessly, while the hot room swam in its own vapors, fumes of wine, greasy fragrance of departed meat, spices, sweat and perfumes.

Abruptly, it was all over. The guests were getting up, milling confusedly in the aisles, and slowly trickling out, leaving the sadly littered floor and the garbage-heaped tables behind them. The echoes grew hollow.

The women of the two Jones families were gone, taking the younger children with them. The last guests were out of earshot. Leaning on his elbows on the table, the Man turned and said, "Well, George?"

Uncle George's face was pale. "Fred, you've pushed me too far. I want you to understand that. I never was jealous of you -- "

The Man must have made some sound, for Uncle George stopped as if stung. "No, by God, I never was!" he said. "But you think you can sit here, manning it over the whole countryside --" His voice was shaking; he stopped again, stared at the dessert plate in front of him, with its monogram and the distinctive Jones pattern, then clutched it and broke the fragile thing over the edge of the table.

Next to him, Cashel started and glanced up, his heavy face surprised.

The Man's voice seemed flat, almost colorless. "Do I understand by that gesture that Cashel is challenging Dick?"

"Unless he gets an apology, right here, right now!" Uncle George struck the table with his fist, making the silverware dance and ring.

The Man turned composedly. "Well, Dick?"

Down the table, the faces of the other men stared sullenly or angrily past him. Dick could see now, as he looked at them, what it was that was eating into Cashel and Uncle George. If he were only out of the way, it would be more than four years before Ad was sixteen; there would be a vacancy, and Cash could go to Colorado -- get the training, meet the important people ...

For the first time he could remember, sitting there beside his father, he felt that he and the Man were completely in harmony, each knowing the other's feelings without a word or gesture.

This was what mattered, after all -- not who was "right" or "wrong."

He said, "I accept." The words hung in the heavy air. Sunlight was pouring brilliantly in at the far end of the room, making the incandescents seem dim and sickly. For a long time no one spoke.

Gray-haired old Vaughan, the Man's body-slob, came at a tottering run through the doorway. The Man, Dick realized, must have signaled for him minutes ago. Leaning back casually over his chair, Dick's father spoke to Vaughan, giving him instructions; the slob went out and returned shortly with a portable typewriter. One of the secretaries, being sent for, sat down at the machine and in a few minutes produced a document which he handed with a bow to the Man. By this time, Kunkle of Delaview had showed up, redder than ever in a hideous apple-green jacket and plus-fours. Kunkle was the district's greatest sports and weapons enthusiast; he knew all the rules of every contest, and always refereed important matches. All the men, having seized the opportunity to stand up, gathered in an uneasy group to read the document -- after which each sat down again in turn to sign it: first Dick's father, then Uncle George, then the in-laws beginning with the eldest.

Down in the left-hand corner, almost as an afterthought, there were two lines: "Challenge offered," followed by Cash's blunt scrawl, and "Challenge accepted," with an empty space. Dick signed, and then glanced over the paper before he handed it back: it began, "Know all men that on this 10th day of May, 2049, a quarrel arising between Richard Jones, eldest son of Frederick Jones of Buckhill, and Cashel Jones, eldest and only son of George Jones ... " Under the last typed line, Dick's eye caught the familiar, austere shape of his father's signature, and the florid loops of Uncle George's. The capital G was small, but the J was enormous, and the last stroke of "Jones" whipped back into a descending curlicue that underlined the name.

"Well, men, it'll have to be this afternoon, if you're all agreeable," said Kunkle. "Say, in half an hour?"