"Me? I'm not grinning. Not at this time of the morning."

"Pete Miller, you were, too. Just like the cat that ate the fish."

"Canary, you mean."

"That's what I said. What's so funny?"

"Nothing," I said. "We just got a good night's sleep for a change. I
like my sleep."

She harrumphed a bit, as suspicious as she usually is, and I went to
the stove for more coffee. Over my shoulder I said, "Want to play a
little cards tonight?"

She was skeptical about that. "At Art's, I suppose."

"Sure. Saturday night euchre tournaments."

"That noisy place? Nothing doing."

I told her the jukebox and the television set were out of commission
and there'd be no noise she didn't make herself. She loved to play
cards, I knew, and she liked Art. It was just the incessant roar that
wore her down. I managed to talk her into it.

* * * * *

At Art's that night I listened with envy to the words that were used
over the telephone when the jukebox gave up its ghost. I heard only
Art's end of the conversation, of course, but I gathered that Art was
being accused at the very least of sabotage. I changed the subject
quick when I caught Helen trying to figure out the look I must have
been wearing. Women get so they're pretty good at that after they've
been married awhile. Art himself drove us home at closing time. Helen
and Art's wife did all the talking, and I'm sure no one noticed I held
my breath before every bar or house and Helen commented, as I fit the
key into the front door, on the fact that the Olsens and the Werners
and the Smiths all picked the same time to turn off their radios.
"Very nice of them," she said, "considering it's Saturday night."

Now, I use two buses to get to work, transferring from the Harper bus
to the Clairmount line, and it's a forty minute ride. For two days I
fed my ego by holding my breath. I likely looked queer with a bursting
red face, but no one said anything, at least directly to me. I
wouldn't have cared much, anyway, because I didn't care much what
happened; after all, wasn't I a benefactor to practically all the
human race, the thinking part, that is? Wasn't it going to be nice to
live in a world without punctured eardrums and hamstrung nerves?
Wasn't it going to be good to be able to eat a meal in peace, to sip
your ten or sixty-cent drink without having some moron with a nickel
prodding your ulcer? I thought so.

Thursday, or maybe Friday, my careful searchi