— Perhaps he was threatening to do something that would hurt her more deeply than that.

— But Mary insists he was kind and thoughtful.

— He was also dogmatic and intolerant. He might be "doing his duty" again. That kind of person is a classic heel.

— I wish you'd shut up and let me go to sleep.

Eventually Qwilleran slept, and in the morning he was waked by two hungry cats, playing hopscotch on his bed and miraculously missing his sore knee. Cats had a sixth sense, he noted, that prevented them from hurting the people they liked. He gave them a good breakfast of canned crabmeat.

Later he was applying cold wet towels to his knee when he heard a knock. He took a deep breath of exasperation and moved painfully to open the door.

Iris Cobb was standing there, wearing her hat and coat and holding a plate of coffeecake. "I'm on my way to church," she said. "Would you like some cranberry twists? I got up early and made them. I couldn't sleep." "Thanks," said Qwilleran, "but I'm afraid you're trying to fatten me up." "How does the rug look this morning? Did the cream leave a spot?" "Not bad, but if you want to send it out and have it cleaned, I'll pay for it." "How's your knee? Any better?" "These injuries are always worse in the morning. I'm trying cold compresses." "Why don't you have dinner with us around seven o'clock, and then you won't have to go out of the house….

C.C. can tell you some interesting stories about Junktown," she added when Qwilleran hesitated. "We're having pot roast and mashed potatoes — nothing fancy. Just potatoes whipped with sour cream and dill. And a salad with Roquefort dressing. And coconut cake for dessert." "I'll be there," said Qwilleran.

As soon as he was dressed, he limped to the drugstore, being unable to survive Sunday without the Sunday papers. At the lunch counter he choked down two hard-boiled eggs that were supposed to be soft-boiled and gave himself indigestion by reading Jack Jaunti's new column. Jaunti, who was half Qwilleran's age, now had the gall to write a column of wit and wisdom from the Delphic heights of his adolescent ignorance.

The newsman spent the rest of the day nursing his crippled knee and pecking at his crippled typewriter, and his ailment activated the Florence Nightingale instinct that is common to cats. Every time he sat down, Yum Yum hopped on his lap, while Koko hovered nearby, looked concerned, spoke softly, and purred whenever Qwilleran glanced in his direction.

When seven o'clock arrived, whiffs of beef simmering with garlic and celery tops beckoned the newsman across the hall to the Cobbs' apartment. C.C., shirtless and shoeless, sat with one leg thrown over the arm of his chair and a can of beer in his hand. He grunted at the arriving guest — a welcome more cordial than Qwilleran had expected — and Mrs.

Cobb turned joyous eyes on her tenant and ushered him to a stately wing chair.

"It's Charles II," she said. "Best thing we own." She pointed out other treasures, which he admired with reserve: a stuffed owl, a wood carving of an adenoidal eagle, an oil portrait of an infant with a bloated forty-year-old face, and an apothecary desk with two dozen tiny drawers of no use to anyone but an apothecary. A radio on the desk top pounded out a senseless, ceaseless beat.

Mrs. Cobb, playing the fussy hostess, passed a platter of tiny meat turnovers and served small glasses of cranberry juice cocktail on plates with lace paper doilies.

C.C. said, "Who you trying to impress with this fancy grub?" "Our new tenant, of course. I wouldn't slave over piroshki for a slob like you," she said sweetly.

C.C. turned an unshaven but handsome face to Qwilleran. "If she starts buttering you up with her goodies, watch out, mister. She might poison you, like she did her first husband." His tone was belligerent, but Qwilleran caught a glint in the man's eye that was surprisingly affectionate.

"If I poison anybody," his wife said, "it will be Cornball Cobb…. Would you all like to hear something interesting?" She reached under a small table and brought a portable tape recorder from its lower shelf. She rewound the reel, touched a green push button and said, "Now listen" to this." As the tape started to unwind, the little machine gave forth an unearthly concert of gurgles, wheezes, whistles, hoots, honks, and snorts.

"Shut that damn thing off!" Cobb yelled, more in sport than in anger.

She laughed. "Now you know how you snore. You wouldn't believe me, would you? You sound like a calliope." "Did you spend my good money just for that?" He got up and hit the red push button with a fist, silencing the recital, but he wore a peculiar look of satisfaction.

"I'm going to use this for evidence when I sue for divorce." Mrs. Cobb winked at Qwilleran, and he squirmed in his chair. This display of thinly veiled sexuality between husband and wife made him feel like a Peeping Tom.

C.C. said, "When do we eat?" "He hates my cooking," Iris Cobb said, "but you should see him put it away." "I can eat anything," her husband grumbled with good humor. "What kind of slop have we got today?" When they sat down at the big kitchen table, he applied himself to his food and became remarkably genial.

Qwilleran tried to visualize C.C. with a shave, a white shirt, and a tie. He could be a successful salesman, a middle-aged matinee idol, a lady-killer, a confidence man. Why had he chosen this grubby role in Junktown?

The newsman ventured to remark, "I met the Three Weird Sisters yesterday," and waited for a reaction.

"How d'you like the redhead?" Cobb asked, leering at his plate. "If she didn't have her foot in a cast, she'd chase you down the street." "And what do you think of our other tenant?" Mrs. Cobb asked. "Isn't he a funny little man?" "He puts on a pretty good show," Qwilleran said. "He tells me he was a Broadway actor." C.C. snorted. "Nearest he ever got to Broadway was Macy's toy department." His wife said, "Ben loves to play Santa Claus. Every Christmas he puts on a red suit and beard and goes to children's hospital wards." "They must pay him for it," said C.C. "He wouldn't do it for free." "One day," she went on, "there was an injured pigeon in the middle of Zwinger Street-with dozens of other pigeons fluttering around to protect it from traffic, and I saw Ben go out with a shoebox and rescue the bird." Qwilleran said, "He has a repulsive thing in his shop-a stuffed cat on a dusty velvet pillow." "That's a pincushion. They were all the rage in the Gay Nineties." "Can he make a living from that dismal collection of junk? Or does he have a sideline, too?" "Ben's got a bundle salted away," C.C. said. "He used to make big money in his day-before taxes got so high." Mrs. Cobb gave her husband a startled look.

The man finished eating and pushed his dessert plate away. "I'm gonna scrounge tonight. Anybody want to come?" "Where do you go?" Qwilleran asked.

"Demolition area. The old Ellsworth house is full of black walnut paneling if I can beat the other vultures to it. Russ says they've already grabbed the stained-glass windows." "I wish you wouldn't go," his wife said. "It's so cold, and the ice is treacherous, and you know it isn't legal." "Everybody does it just the same. Where do you think the Dragon got that Russian silver chandelier? She makes like she's so high class, but you should see her with a crowbar!" Mrs. Cobb said to Qwilleran, "C.C. got caught once and had to pay a heavy fine. You'd think he would have learned his lesson." "Aw, hell! It won't happen twice," her husband said. "Somebody tipped off the police the other time, and I know who it was. It won't happen again." "Let's take coffee in the living room," Mrs. Cobb suggested.

Cobb lighted his cigar and Qwilleran lighted his pipe and said, "I understand Junktown doesn't get much cooperation from the city government." "Mister, you'd think we were some kind of disease that's got to be wiped out," Cobb said. "We asked for better street lights, and the city said no, because Junktown's due to be torn down within the next ten years. Ten years! So we tried to put in old-fashioned gaslights at our own expense, but the city said no dice. All light poles gotta be forty feet high." "C.C. has spent days at City Hall," said Mrs. Cobb, "when he could have been earning good money on the picket line." "We used to have big elm trees on this street," her husband went on, "and the city cut 'em down to widen the street. So we planted saplings on the curb, and guess what! Chop chop! They widened the street another two feet." "Tell Qwill about the signs, C.C." "Yeah, the signs. We all made old-time signs out of wormy wood, and the city made us take 'em down. Unsafe, they said. Then Russ put hand-split cedar shingles on the front of his carriage house, and the city yanked 'em off.