He added, "Your country has a system free enough to let its heroes work at their trade. It should last a long time—unless its looseness is destroyed from inside."

"I hope you're right."

"I am right. This subject I know and I'm not stupid, as Nebbi thinks. He's right about the futility of ‘adding zeros'—but he doesn't realize that he is a zero."

I grinned. "No point in letting a zero get my goat."

"None. Especially as you are not. Wherever you go, you will make yourself felt, you won't be one of the nerd. I respect you, and I don't respect many. Never people as a whole, I could never be a democrat at heart. To claim to ‘respect' and even to ‘love' the great mass with their yaps at one end and smelly feet at the other requires the fatuous, uncritical, saccharine, blind, sentimental slobbishness found in some nursery supervisors, most spaniel dogs, and all missionaries. It isn't a political system, it's a disease. But be of good cheer; your American politicians are immune to this disease...and your customs allow the non-zero elbow room."

Rufo glanced at my sword again. "Old friend, you didn't come here to bitch about Nebbi." "No." I looked down at that keen blade. "I fetched this to shave you, Rufo."

"Eh?"

"I promised I would shave your corpse. I owe it to you for the slick job you did on me. So here I am, to shave the barber."

He said slowly, "But I'm not yet a corpse." He did not move. But his eyes did, estimating distance between us. Rufo wasn't counting on my being "chivalrous"; he had lived too long.

"Oh, that can be arranged," I said cheerfully, "unless I get straight answers from you."

He relaxed a touch. "I'll try, Oscar."

"More than try, please. You're my last chance. Rufo, this must be private. Even from Star."

"Under the Rose. My word on it."

"With your fingers crossed, no doubt. But don't risk it, I'm serious. And straight answers, I need them. I want advice about my marriage."

He looked glum. "And I meant to go out today. Instead I worked. Oscar, I would rather criticize a woman's firstborn, or even her taste in hats. Much safer to teach a shark to bite. What if I refuse?"

"Then I shave you!"

"You would, you heavy-handed headsman!" He frowned. " ‘Straight answers—‘ You don't want them, you want a shoulder to cry on."

"Maybe that, too. But I do want straight answers, not the lies you can tell in your sleep."

"So I lose either way. Telling a man the truth about his marriage is suicide. I think I'll sit tight and see if you have the heart to cut me down in cold blood."

"Oh, Rufo, I'll put my sword under your lock and key if you like. You know I would never draw against you."

"I know no such thing," he said querulously. "There's always that first time. Scoundrels are predictable, but you're a man of honor and that frightens me. Can't we handle this over the see-speak?"

"Come off it, Rufo. I've nobody else to turn to. I want you to speak frankly. I know that a marriage counselor has to lay it on the line, pull no punches. For the sake of blood we've lost together I ask you to advise me. And frankly, of course!"

" ‘Of course,' is it? The last time I risked it you were for cutting the tongue out of me." He looked at me moodily. "But I was ever a fool where friendship speaks. Hear, I'll dicker ye a fair dicker. You talk, I'll listen...and if it should come about that you're taking so long that my tired old kidneys complain and I'm forced to leave your welcome company for a moment...why, then you'll misunderstand and go away in a huff and we'll say no more about it. Eh?"

"Okay."

"The Chair recognizes you. Proceed."

So I talked. I talked out my dilemma and frustration, sparing neither self nor Star (it was for her sake, too, and it wasn't necessary to speak of our most private matters; those, at least, were dandy). But I told our quarrels and many matters best kept in the family, I had to.

Rufo listened. Presently he stood up and paced, looking troubled. Once he tut-tutted over the men Star had brought home. "She shouldn't have called her maids in. But do forget it, lad. She never remembers that men are shy, whereas females merely have customs. Allow Her this."

Later he said, "No need to be jealous of Jocko, son. He drives a tack with a sledgehammer."

"I'm not jealous."

"That's what Menelaus said. But leave room for give and take. Every marriage needs it."

Finally I ran down, having told him Star's prediction that I would leave. "I'm not blaming her for anything and talking about it has straightened me out. I can sweat it out now, behave myself, and be a good husband. She does make terrible sacrifices to do her job—and the least I can do is make it easier. She's so sweet and gentle and good."

Rufo stopped, some distance away with his back to his desk. "You think so?"

"I know so."

"She's an old bag!"

I was out of my chair and at him at once. I didn't draw. Didn't think of it, wouldn't have anyhow. I wanted to get my hands on him and punish him for talking that way about my beloved.

He bounced over the desk like a ball and by the time I covered the length of the room, Rufo was behind it, one hand in a drawer.

"Naughty, naughty," he said. "Oscar, I don't want to shave you."

"Come out and fight like a man!"

"Never, old friend. One step closer and you're dog meat. All your fine promises, your pleadings. ‘Pull no punches' you said. ‘Lay it on the line' you said. ‘Speak frankly' you said. Sit down in that chair."

" ‘Speaking frankly' doesn't mean being insulting!"

"Who's to judge? Can I submit my remains for approval before I make them? Don't compound your broken promises with childish illogic. And would you force me to buy a new rug? I never keep one I've killed a friend on; the stains make me gloomy. Sit down in that chair."

I sat down.

"Now," said Rufo, staying where he was, "you will listen while I talk. Or perhaps you will get up and walk out. In which case I might be so pleased to see the last of your ugly face that that might be that. Or I might be so annoyed at being interrupted that you would drop dead in the doorway, for I've much pent up and ready to spill over. Suit yourself.

"I said," he went on, "that my grandmother is an old bag. I said it brutally, to discharge your tension—and now you're not likely to take too much offense at many offensive things I still must say. She's old, you know that, though no doubt you find it easy to forget, mostly. I forget it myself, mostly, even though She was old when I was a babe making messes on the floor and crowing at the dear sight of Her. Bag, She is, and you know it. I could have said ‘experienced woman' but I had to rap your teeth with it; you've been dodging it even while you've been telling me how well you know it—and how you don't care. Granny is an old bag, we start from there.

"And why should She be anything else? Tell yourself the answer. You're not a fool, you're merely young. Ordinarily She has but two possible pleasures and the other She can't indulge."

"What's the other one?"

"Handing down bad decisions through sadistic spite, that's the one She dare not indulge. So let us be thankful that Her body has built into it this harmless safety valve, else we would all suffer grievously before somebody managed to kill Her. Lad, dear lad, can you dream how mortal tired She must be of most things? Your own zest soured in only months. Think what it must be to hear the same old weary mistakes year after year with nothing to hope for but a clever assassin. Then be thankful that She still pleasures in one innocent pleasure. So She's an old bag and I mean no disrespect; I salute a beneficent balance between two things She must be to do her job.

"Nor did She stop being what She is by reciting a silly rhyme with you one bright day on a hilltop. You think She has taken a vacation from it since, sticking to you only. Possibly She has, if you have quoted Her exactly and I read the words rightly; She always tells the truth.