"You've got to take me as I am," I told him, "mittens and all, thank the
Bonny Dew--" and hastily explained, "That's French--_le bon Dieu_--the
good God--don't hit me. I'm not going to tell you any more of my
secrets."

He laughed feebly, like he was dying.

"Cheer up," I said. "I won't be here forever, and there are worse places
than the Place."

He nodded grudgingly, looking around. "You know what, Greta, if you'll
promise not to make some dreadful joke out of it: on operations, I
pretend I'll soon be going backstage to court the world-famous ballerina
Greta Forzane."

He was right about the backstage part. The Place is a regular
theater-in-the-round with the Void for an audience, the Void's gray
hardly disturbed by the screens masking Surgery (Ugh!), Refresher and
Stores. Between the last two are the bar and kitchen and Beau's piano.
Between Surgery and the sector where the Door usually appears are the
shelves and taborets of the Art Gallery. The control divan is stage
center. Spaced around at a fair distance are six big low couches--one
with its curtains now shooting up into the gray--and a few small tables.
It is like a ballet set and the crazy costumes and characters that turn
up don't ruin the illusion. By no means. Diaghilev would have hired most
of them for the Ballet Russe on first sight, without even asking them
whether they could keep time to music.

CHAPTER 2

Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,

--Hodgson

A RIGHT-HAND GLOVE

Beau had gone behind the bar and was talking quietly at Doc, but with
his eyes elsewhere, looking very sallow and professional in his white,
and I thought--Damballa!--I'm in the French Quarter. I couldn't see the
New Girl. Sid was at last getting to the New Boy after the fuss about
Mark. He threw me a sign and I started over with Erich in tow.

"Welcome, sweet lad. Sidney Lessingham's your host, and a fellow
Englishman. Born in King's Lynn, 1564, schooled at Cambridge, but London
was the life and death of me, though I outlasted Bessie, Jimmie,
Charlie, and Ollie almost. And what a life! By turns a clerk, a spy, a
bawd--the two trades are hand in glove--a poet of no account, a beggar,
and a peddler of resurrection tracts. Beau Lassiter, our throats are
tinder!"

At the word "poet," the New Boy looked up, but resentfully, as if he had
been tricked into it.

"And to spare your throat for drinking, sweet gallant, I'll be so bold
as