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about it until one night Bob said that he wouldn't be
able to see me the next day. He had a family thing
to attend to. That he wouldn’t be home until late.

“He cautiously asked what I was going to do. I
said I’d probably stay home. I didn’t want to reveal
my disappointment.

“Something told me not to go but that night I
went to the bar anyway—very late.

“The place was packed. I had to walk far to the
back to find room, a point where the dining room,
equally crowded, began. I looked around at the sea
of men, eventually ending my survey of the room

with a glance at a large table on my right. Some six &

men were occupying it, evenly divided between
middle-aged and what I had come to recognize as
“kept boys.”

“In the middle was a young, strangely familiar
~man. Around his shoulders lay the languid arm of
an extremely handsome man with greying hair,/
obviously tall, with a well-kept figure. I could hear !
him say as he lifted a glass, “Now, let’s drink to 4
Bobby—and the end of our first aind last separa-
tion.”” He turned to the boy.

“As the boy raised his glass his face turned in my §
direction. I hadn’t wanted to believe it when J heard
the name, but I instinctively felt that the man was &