Cavenaugh paused and looked embarrassed again. “The thing that was most unpleasant is difficult to explain. The old man sat there by the fire and leered at me with a silly sort of admiration that was—well, more than humiliating. ‘Gay boy, gay dog!’ he would mutter, and when he grinned he showed his teeth, worn and yellow—shells. I remembered that it was better to talk casually to insane people; so I remarked carelessly that I had been out with a party and got stuck.
“‘Oh yes, I remember,’ he said, ‘Flora and Lottie and Maybelle and Marcelline, and poor Kate.’
“He had named them correctly; so I began to think I had been hitting the bright waters too hard.
“Things I drank never had seemed to make me woody; but you can never tell when trouble is going to hit you. I pulled my hat down and tried to look as uncommunicative as possible; but he kept croaking on from time to time, like this: ‘Poor Kate! Splendid arms, but dope got her. She took up with Eastern religions after she had her hair dyed. Got to going to a Swami’s joint, and smoking opium. Temple of the Lotus, it was called, and the police raided it.’
“This was nonsense, of course; the young woman was in the pink of condition. I let him rave, but I decided that if something didn’t come out for me pretty soon, I’d foot it across Long Island. There wasn’t room enough for the two of us. I got up and took another try at my car. He hopped right after me.
“‘Good car,’ he wheezed, ‘better than the little Ford.’
“I’d had a Ford before, but so has everybody; that was a safe guess.
“‘Still,’ he went on, ‘that run in from Huntington Bay in the rain wasn’t bad. Arrested for speeding, he-he.’
“It was true I had made such a run, under rather unusual circumstances, and had been arrested. When at last I heard my life-boat snorting up the road, my visitor got up, sighed, and stepped back into the shadow of the trees. I didn’t wait to see what became of him, you may believe. That was visitation number one. What do you think of it?”