"Jim," he said finally, "I called you because, well, you're a practical guy and can face things in a practical way. I've got to tell somebody about it. I'm—it's driving me crazy, Jim."

I stifled a yawn and fixed my smile and found my mind wandering back to the lady's earlobes. Now I'm not against a guy letting down his hair, but I was sure that with Willy it couldn't possibly amount to anymore than another fruitless crush on a model. He had them frequently, but they always fizzled out before the girl got around to compromising him. He was always a foot short of them, but he had money; the usual solution was little more than another illo assignment which required a horsey model of another color. I'd begun to suspect that the cause of neuroses in little artists like Willy was too many here-now gone-tomorrow beautiful babes. Transference, or something like that. It makes them so dizzy they forget which is the real entity—the canvas reproduction or the model. This and other things like a pithless pituitary loosens the screws, and then they make from Bohemia. I don't pretend to be a psychologist, but that's the way it adds up.

So I was half-thinking of getting the lady at the apartment to give Willy a real down-to-earth tumble when he started his spiel. I must have missed a few paragraphs of his monologue, because when I caught up to the subject I was away off base.

"... so I've got to give it up, Jim. If I don't there's no telling what it would lead to. You could—help me, with your drag at the agency you represent. I could do account execking, or maybe be a consultant art director-without-portfolio, anything—"

"Whoa down, Willy," I said, startled. "Give up illustrating? Just because of a dame—"

Willy shook his head sadly. "She's got nothing to do with anything else I draw. She isn't at all like the models. Oh, I know what a goop I've been about them, but Red has cured me." He paused and looked at me quizzically, shaking his head. "I knew you had a level head, Jim—that's exactly why I've told you this. But even so, your reaction—" He frowned. His hurt-dog eyes narrowed resentfully. "You don't believe me."

I cursed myself inwardly for not having paid more attention to him, but his voice was the kind that would put a sympathetic Father Confessor to sleep if he concentrated too hard on it. I'd been prepared to let him get it off his skinny chest, pat him on the back and tell him to leave everything to old Jim Fixit. But the quitting business was a looper. He was too canvas-happy to give it up without a fight.

"Look," I said to cover up the fact that my ears had been closed, "what you told me may seem unusual to you, but to me it's just one of those things that aren't quite what they seem. Now, uh—go over it again in detail and I'll apply myself to it completely from your angle this time. Tell me exactly where Red fits in, and where the—uh—trouble started."

Willy slapped his knees and looked even more forlorn, reaching for a smoke while he still had one in his mouth. "Sorry I doubted you, Jim, but you can understand how I feel about it. Look—"