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into your inheritance.”
    “I shall put a match to the house in the dead of night, set up an alarum, and watch them run out in their nightclothes. It will be interesting to see how they go about living when there is nothing left for them to eat but one another.”
    He said it with such calmness, detachment, that a shiver ran through Jimmie, his reaction compounded of both horror and delight. He turned to another page of the album. The clipping there was of a May Day parade in New York City, headed: The Commies’ Thinning Ranks.
    “There I am,” Teddy said. “Bold and balder.”
    “This is great,” Jimmie said. He was going into court to defend a Red in a paternity suit. “A Communist’s word is not gospel to most Americans, you know, and their behavior in court hasn’t endeared them to judge or jury.”
    “But my dear boy, I am not a Communist. I loathe them. That’s why I’m there. They should not have a monopoly on the defense of men’s rights. And I certainly didn’t want to surrender the first of May to them. Though why I should cherish it, I don’t know. One of the most dreadful of my childhood recollections is of prancing around a maypole with my shoes full of gravel.”
    Jimmie scratched his head. “I suppose there’s a sort of logic to your reasoning. I’m not sure Mr. Wiggam is going to see it.”
    “My dear Jarvis, if my mother saw it, Wiggam will see it. He will have to.”
    “Quite true,” said Jimmie. On the whole he was not displeased with this new picture of little Teddy Adkins which was emerging. He was showing up to be a man of good will, however dubious seemed his wisdom…or was he merely an exhibitionist? “Wouldn’t you like to leave the album with me for a day or two? I won’t use any information without your consent.”
    “I doubt I shall be more uncomfortable at your using it than at your culling it.” Adkins wiped the perspiration from his hands on a handkerchief. “It is rather embarrassing, you know.”
    Jimmie grinned. “You must think of me as you would a psychiatrist, Mr. Adkins.”
    “Do you know, I’ve often thought I’d go to one, but I’m afraid it would spoil the fun I get out of life.” Adkins finished his sherry. “I don’t like to leave that about really,” he said, referring again to the scrap book.
    “I’ll go over it right away,” Jimmie said, and took him to the door himself.
    Finally, just before the door closed on him, Adkins said: “Don’t leave it where your housekeeper will find it, will you?”
    “I’ll lock it up,” said Jimmie, “although I’d leave my own diary with Mrs. Norris.”
    “But you lead such an exemplary life,” Mr. Adkins said. He flashed his transitory smile and departed.
    What the hell does he know about my exemplary life, Jimmie thought, returning to his study. It was particularly irksome to have heard the man say it because it was all too true. He poured a drink and took it to Mrs. Norris’ sitting room off the kitchen. She would not help herself to one unless she was about to go into a faint.
    She looked up from the afternoon paper. “Ah, Mister Jamie, thank you. He’s gone, is he?”
    “For the present. I don’t very much like his habit of popping in. I hope it doesn’t annoy you.”
    “If it took no more than that to annoy me, you could put me out to pasture. I find him a congenial man.” She saw that Jimmie was reading her paper. “You may have it if you like, sir.”
    “Excuse me,” Jimmie said, and stated what he had come in about: “Could you give me something to eat on a cracker? Where I’m going tonight we won’t sit down to dinner till nine.”
    “There’s not one word about Mr. Tully’s case in the whole paper. It’s all about those dreadful boys going around in gangs…”
    Jimmie eased himself out of a discussion of them, and realized even as he was doing it that too many people in New York were doing the same thing.
    In his study again, he was about to put Adkins’ scrap book