eyes of hers. "You will listen to me? You will help?"

"Madam, help you don't need. But listen, yes. This is my great talent. I will be happy to listen to you."

I thought a quiet booth and a couple of cold ones in Maxim's would be nice. No. She wondered in a different, quavering old voice, if greater privacy might not be better. "What I have to tell you, young man, may be difficult for you to grasp. It may be necessary to show you some things."

"Uh." She wasn't the type of doll I favored taking home for a sociable evening but it wouldn't have seemed mannerly to say no to the look of appeal in her eyes. "All right."

We went on over to the parking lot and I drove her to the very comfortable home out in Oakdale that Uncle John and Aunt Belle turned over to me when they rolled off to see the world from their house trailer a year and a half back. Of course they dropped anchor in Petersburg and haven't budged since, but I guess it gives them the footloose feeling they were looking for. And I have the house, which is quite a pleasant little place.

I think Aunt Belle figured giving me the house would offset my own dubious attributes so that some nice girl might just possibly marry and make something of me. But I kept a picture on my bureau of Uncle John, standing by the sink in his apron, and was still holding out.

Well, the old bat didn't clue me in on anything on the drive out there in my car. We chatted along the way, mostly her asking the questions, me answering. She was just a visitor to the town, she said. She wanted to find out all about it—with ten thousand nonsensical questions.

I parked in the drive and we went in. While she settled down on the sofa I went to the bar, my addition to the home furnishings, to fix a drink; wondered if there might still be any tea knocking around; thought better of that and mixed two drinks. Then I turned back toward her.

"Now," I said, "tell me."

"Well," announced that ravaged wreck of an old woman, "the fact is that I am from another world."

"Oh, hell," I said, "how did you come in? By saucer or by broom?" It was a mean remark, I suppose. Not kindly. Even so, the way she took it seemed all out of proportion. The old bat's face suddenly went slack. She slumped over sideways on the sofa, those big, green eyes open, staring, empty. There was no need 

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