The boss said:

  “Of course you will, old boy. Now, what about a little cough medicine for the occasion?”

  George S. Perkins said:

  “I don’t mind if I do.”

  The boss filled two glasses that had red rims and funny black figures of drunks leaning against lampposts. George S. Perkins got up to take his glass, and the boss got up, and they clinked glasses across the desk.

  “Here’s looking at you,” said the boss.

  “Mud in your eye,” said George S. Perkins.

  They emptied the glasses and the boss said:

  “Bet you’re just itching to get home and tell the news to the little woman.”

  “Mrs. Perkins will be most grateful, same as myself,” said George S. Perkins.

  Outside the boss’ office, the advertising manager—who was a wit—twisted the sparse blond hair into a curlicue in the middle of George S. Perkins’ scalp, saying, “Always knew you had the stuff, old boy, old boy, old boy.”

  George S. Perkins sat down at his desk to finish the day’s work. He had sat at the desk every working day of the last twenty years. He knew every grain in its old wood and the charred spot of a cigarette burn someone had left there carelessly a long time ago. He had not noticed how and when the bright broad varnish had disappeared and how the long, grayish bands had come to cross its wide expanse. He had not noticed how the little wrinkles had come in the skin between his fingers; but his hands were still the same, white and soft, with fingers too short for his body, and when he closed them into helpless little fists, soft creases, like bracelets, still crossed his wrists, like the wrists of a baby.

  His face had not changed, and his office had not changed, everything in it familiar, inescapable, like the lines of his face. The legs of the filing cabinet had worn deep cuts in the carpet, and the sun had burnt the carpet to a soft gray, leaving a darker brown patch under the filing cabinet. He had sat there while somewhere at home a wedding had been waiting for him, while in a used car lot a dealer had been waiting with his first automobile, while in a hospital his wife had been awaiting a new life to enter their lives. He had stared hopefully, miserably, happily, wearily at the same spot on the wall by the watercolor, a gray spot that looked like a rabbit with a round snoot and one long ear.

  On a shelf by the window stood tiers of bright cans with green and red and pink labels fading softly into one shade of dusty yellow: peaches and apple butter and mincemeat and salmon. They stood erect, immovable like stout bars. Sometimes he thought foolishly that the bars were rising across the windowpane. But he liked the can of salmon, because he had suggested to the artist the green tangle of parsley on the white plates by the juicy pink slice, and the artist had said, “Great idea, Mr. Perkins. Just the right touch. The appeal to elegance.”

  Beyond the window, a tangle of roofs and chimneys stretched to the far horizon. The sky was turning a muddy brown beyond the roofs, with a faint reddish hue, like dishwater after a dinner when beets had been served. But there were a few spots of pink scattered over the brown, a pink soft as petals of apple blossom in the spring. Many years ago, at that hour, George S. Perkins remembered watching the pink beyond the cornice of a tall old house and thinking dimly of what lay there, beyond the house, and farther, beyond the pink, in some strange countries where the sun was just rising, and of what could happen to him there, very far away, what would happen—someday. But he had not thought of that for many years, and a big black skyscraper had risen to hide the old house, and on the roof of the skyscraper there was an electric sign for Tornado Motor Oil, a tangled web of metal against the sunset.

  George S. Perkins took two letters from his recent mail, one from a famous golf club with a return envelope enclosed for his initiation fee, the other from an expensive tailor. He made a ring with a red pencil around the tailor’s address. He must also look up a good gym, he thought, would have to do something about that stomach of his; a bulge would spoil the classiest suit, not a big bulge, but still a bulge.

  The light went on in the Tornado Motor Oil sign beyond the window, huge letters going on and off, thick drops outlined in yellow neon tubes, falling, in jerking spasms, from a long nozzle into a bucket. George S. Perkins got up and locked his desk, whistling a tune from a musical comedy he had seen in New York while on his honeymoon. The advertising manager said: “Well, well!”

  George S. Perkins drove home, whistling “Over There.” The evening was turning chilly, and a fire burnt on the imitation logs in the fireplace of his living room. The living room smelt of lavender and deep-fat frying. A lamp was lit on the mantelpiece; it had a standard of two huge dice cubes and a shade covered with old whiskey labels.

  “You’re late,” said Mrs. Perkins.

  Mrs. Perkins wore a dress of brown crepe de chine with a large rhinestone clip in front that always snapped open, showing a slip that had been pink. She wore dark gray, service-weight stockings and brown comfort shoes. Her face looked like a bird’s, a bird that had wizened slowly, drying out in the sun, and her nails were clipped very short.

  “Well, dovey,” said George S. Perkins gaily, “I have a good excuse for being late.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” said Mrs. Perkins, “but listen to me, George Perkins, you’ll have to do something about Junior. That boy of yours got a D again in arithmetic. As I’ve always said, if a father don’t take the proper interest in his children, what can you expect from a boy who—”

  “Aw, honeybunch, we’ll excuse the kid for once—just to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “How would you like to be Mrs. Assistant Manager of the Daffodil Canning Company?”

  “I would like it very much,” said Mrs. Perkins. “Not that I have any hope of ever being.”

  “Well, dovey, you are. As of today.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Perkins. “Mama! Come here!”

  Mrs. Shly, Mr. Perkins’ mother-in-law, wore an ample dress of printed silk with blue daisies and hummingbirds on a white background, a string of imitation seed pearls, and a net over her heavy, graying blond hair.

  “Mama,” said Mrs. Perkins, “Georgie’s got a promotion.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Shly, “we’ve waited for it long enough.”

  “But you don’t understand,” said George S. Perkins, blinking helplessly, “I’ve been made Assistant Manager—” He looked for a response in their faces, found none, added lamely, “—of the Daffodil Canning Company.”

  “Well?” asked Mrs. Shly.

  “Rosie,” he said softly, looking at his wife, “it’s twenty years that I’ve worked for it.”

  “That, my boy,” said Mrs. Shly, “is nothing to brag about.”

  “Well, but I’ve made it. . . . It’s a long time, twenty years. You get sort of tired. But now . . . Rosie, now we can take it easy . . . easy . . . light. . . .” His voice sounded eager and young for a moment. “You know, light . . .” and died again, and added apologetically, “Easy, I mean.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Mrs. Perkins.

  “Dovey, I’ve been sort of . . . planning . . . thinking on the way home. . . . I’ve been thinking of it for a long time, nights, you know . . . making plans. . . .”

  “Indeed? But your wife’s not let in on any of it?”

  “Oh, I . . . It was just sort of like dreaming . . . and you might’ve thought I was . . . unhappy, and it isn’t that at all, only you know how it is: you work and work all day, and everything goes nicely, and suddenly you feel like you can’t stand another minute of it, for no reason at all. But then it passes. It always passes.”

  “I declare,” said Mrs. Perkins, “I never heard the like of it.”

  “Well, I was just thinking . . .”

  “You’ll stop thinking this minute,” said Mrs. Shly, “or the roast’ll be all ruined.”

  At the dinner table, when the maid had served roasted leg of lamb with mint sauce, George S. Perkins said:

  “Now, what I was thinking about, dovey . . .”

  “First of all,” said Mrs. Perkins, “we’ve got to have a new Frigidaire. The old one’s a sight. No one uses iceboxes anymore. Now, Mrs. Tucker . . . Cora Mae, you don’t butter a whole slice at once. Can’t you eat like a lady? Now, Mrs. Tucker has a new one and it’s a honey. Electric light inside and everything.”

  “Ours is only about two years old,” said George S. Perkins. “It looks pretty good to me.”

  “That,” said Mrs. Shly, “is because you’re a very economical man, but the only thing you save on is your home and family.”

  “I was thinking,” said George S. Perkins, “you know, honey, if we’re very careful, we could take a vacation maybe—in a year or two—and go maybe to Europe, you know, Switzerland or Italy. It’s where they have mountains, you know.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, and lakes. And snow high up there. And sunsets.”

  “And what would we do?”

  “Oh . . . well . . . just rest, I guess. And look around, sort of. You know, at the swans and the sailboats. Just the two of us.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mrs. Shly, “just the two of you.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Perkins, “you were always a great one at making up ways of wasting good money, George Perkins. And my slaving and skimping and saving every little penny. Swans, indeed. Well, before you go thinking of any swans, you’d better get me a new Frigidaire, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Shly, “and we sure need a mayonnaise mixer. And a ’lectric serving machine. And it’s about time to be thinking of a new car, too.”

  “Look,” said George S. Perkins, “you don’t understand. I don’t want anything that we need.”

  “What’s that?” asked Mrs. Perkins, and her mouth remained hanging open.

  “Please, Rosie. Listen. You must understand . . . I want something I don’t need at all.”

  “George Perkins! Have you been drinking?”

  “Rosie, if we start that all over again—buying things—paying for things—the car and the house and the dentist’s bills—more of it—all over again—and nothing else—never—and we pass up our last chance—”

  “What’s the matter with you? What’s come over you all of a sudden?”

  “Rosie, it isn’t that I’ve been unhappy. And it isn’t that I don’t like what I got out of life. I like it fine. Only . . . well, it’s like that old bathrobe of mine, Rosie. I’m glad I have it, it’s pretty and warm and comfortable, and I like it, just the same as I like the rest of it. Just like that. And no more. There should be more.”

  “Well, I like that! The swell bathrobe I picked for your birthday. That’s the thanks I get! Well, if you didn’t like it, why didn’t you exchange it?”

  “Oh, Rosie, it isn’t that! It’s a swell bathrobe. Only, you know, a man can’t live his whole life for a bathrobe. Or for things that man feels the same way about. Nice things, Rosie, only there should be more.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just it. A man should know.”

  “He’s touched in the head,” said Mrs. Shly.

  “Rosie, a man can’t live just for things that do nothing to him—inside, I mean. There should be something that he’s afraid of—afraid and happy. Like going to church—only not in a church. Something he can look up to. Something—high, Rosie . . . That’s it, high.”

  “Well, if it’s culture you want, didn’t I subscribe to the Book-of-the-Month Club? Didn’t I?”

  “Oh, I know I can’t explain it. There’s just one thing I’m asking, Rosie, just one: let’s take that vacation. Let’s try. Maybe things would happen to us . . . strange things . . . the kind you dream about. I’ll be an old man, if I give that up. I don’t want to be old. Not yet, Rosie. Oh, Lord, not yet! Just leave me a few years, Rosie.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind about your vacation. You can have your vacation—if we can afford it, after the important things are taken care of. You got to think of the important things first. Like a new Frigidaire, for instance. That old box of ours is a mess, all right. It never keeps anything fresh. Now, I had some apple butter and . . .”

  “Ma-a,” said Cora Mae, “Junior was stealing apple butter from the icebox. I seen him.”

  “I didn’t!” yelled Junior, raising his pale face from his plate.

  “You did, too!” screamed Cora Mae.

  The third child, Henry Bernard Perkins, said nothing. He sat in his high chair, with his mush bowl, thoughtfully drooling on his oilcloth bib with a picture of Mother Goose.

  “Now, for instance,” said Mrs. Perkins, “supposing Junior ate the apple butter, I hate to think what it’ll do to his stomach. I’ll bet it was rancid. That icebox . . .”

  “I thought it worked all right,” said George S. Perkins.

  “Oh, you did? That’s because you never see what’s under your nose. You don’t care if the children eat wilted vegetables. But let me tell you, there’s nothing worse’n wilted vegetables. Mrs. Tucker, she heard a lecture where the lady said that if you don’t get enough stuff with vitamins what make bones the kids will get rickets. That’s what they’ll get.”

  “In my day,” said Mrs. Shly, “parents sure did think of what they fed the young ones. Take the Chinese, for instance. They don’t eat nothing but rice. That’s why all the Chinks have rickets.”

  “Now, Mother,” said George S. Perkins, “who ever told you that?”

  “Well, I suppose I don’t know what I’m talking about?” said Mrs. Shly. “I suppose the big businessman is the only one to tell us what’s what?”

  “But, Mother. I didn’t mean . . . I only meant that . . .”

  “Never mind, George Perkins. Never mind. I know very well what you meant.”

  “You leave Mama alone, George.”

  “But, Rosie, I didn’t . . .”

  “It’s no use talking, Rosalie. When a man hasn’t the decency to . . .”

  “Mother, will you let Rosie and me . . .”

  “I understand. I understand perfectly, George Perkins. An old mother, these days, is no good for anything but to shut up and wait for the graveyard!”

  “Mother,” said George S. Perkins bravely, “I wish you’d stop trying to . . . to make trouble.”

  “So?” said Mrs. Shly, smashing her napkin into the gravy. “So that’s it? So I’m making trouble? So I’m a burden to you, ain’t I? Well, I’m glad you came out with it, Mr. Perkins! And here I’ve been, poor fool that I am, slaving in this house like it was my own! Polishing the stove, only yesterday that was, till all my nails is broke! That’s the gratitude I get! Well, I won’t stand for it another minute! Not one minute!”

  She rose, the soft creases of her neck trembling, and left the room, slamming the door.

  “George!” said Mrs. Perkins, her eyes wide in consternation. “George, if you don’t apologize, Mama will leave us!”

  George S. Perkins looked up, blinking, the weariness of years whose count he had lost giving him a sudden, desperate courage.

  “Well, let her go,” he said.

  Mrs. Perkins stood silent, hunched forward. Then she screamed:

  “So it’s come to that? So that’s what it does to you, your big promotion? Coming home, picking a fight with everybody, throwing your wife’s old mother out into the gutter! If you think I’m going to—”

  “Listen,” said George S. Perkins slowly, “I’ve stood about as much of her as I’m going to stand. She’d better go. It was coming to this, sooner or later.”

  Mrs. Perkins stood straight and the rhinestone clip snapped open on her chest.

  “You listen to me, George Perkins.” Her thin voice made dry, gulping sounds somewhere high in her throat. “If you don’t apologize to Mama, if you don’t apologize to her before tomorrow morning, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live!”

  “All right by me,” said George S. Perkins. He had heard the same promise many times.

  Mrs. Perkins ran, sobbing, up the stairs to her bedroom.

  George S. Perkins rose heavily and walked up the stairs, slowly, his head bent, looking down at the bulge of his stomach, the old stairway creaking under his steps. Cora Mae watched curiously to see where he would go. He did not turn to Mrs. Perkins’ room; he shuffled slowly away, down the corridor, to his bedroom.

  Junior stretched his hand across the table and stuffed hastily into his mouth the slice of lamb left on Mrs. Shly’s plate. . . .

  The clock in the living room struck ten.

  All lights were out in the house, save a dim lamp in the window of George S. Perkins’ bedroom. George S. Perkins sat on this bed, huddled in a faded bathrobe of purple flannel, and studied thoughtfully the toes of his old slippers.

  The doorbell rang.

  George S. Perkins started. That was strange; his window opened over the front porch and he had heard no steps in the street outside, nor across the lawn, nor on the hard cement of the porch.

  The maid had gone for the night. He rose hesitantly and shuffled down the stairs, the steps creaking.

  He crossed the dark living room and opened the door.

  “Oh, my God!” said George S. Perkins.

  A woman stood there, on the porch. She wore a plain, black suit buttoned high under her chin and a black hat with a brim like a man’s, pulled low over one eye, and he saw a tight black glove glistening in the poor light, on a slender, incredible hand grasping a black bag. He saw blond hair spilled in the air under the hat’s brim. He had never met that woman before, but he knew her face well, too well.

  “Please keep quiet,” she whispered, “and let me in.”

  His five fingers were spread wide apart over his mouth and he stuttered foolishly:

  “You . . . you . . . you are . . .”

  “Kay Gonda,” said the woman.

  His hands dropped like weights to his side, pulling his arms down. He had to learn to speak again. He tried. He made a long sound and it came out like: “W-w-what—”

  “Are you George Perkins?” she asked.

  “Y-yes,” he stuttered. “Yes, ma’am. George Perkins. George S. Perkins. Yes.”

  “I am in trouble. You heard about it?”