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Rh by the hosts. One could appear as an elegant lady, a demure maid, a ship's captain, a simple seaworthy seaman.

Alcohol mixed with ginger ale was the only drink. Scattered about the "yacht" were cabins, occupants of which could avoid intrusion by pressing a button which caused a red light to appear outside their doors.

In the basement was a tiny dance floor, a bar and booths where those who did not care to drink might sit and watch their fellows. Here, behind barred doors and windows, the last shreds of pretense were flung away. For the first time Ken listened to a philosophical exposition of what his companion, an austere non-drinking man of forty, dressed in the comfortable robe of a monk, described as the inevitable spread of homosexuality.

"It's the logical result of modern tendencies," he said. "The feminization of men is due to the breakdown in the paternalistic world. A boy no longer can aspire to become an all-powerful head of his house. He envies his elegantly dressed toil-free mother, his gentle school teacher, his sheltered sisters, their colorful clothes and their lovely bodies. If he is rich, he enjoys the thrill of changing sex. If he is poor—ah, there I have a rare theory. The poor boy is driven by blind instinct toward race suicide. What has the modern world to offer so completely uninhibited as the freemasonry of our kind? Women hate each other. Men are natural enemies of each other. We of the third sex enjoy perfect love, fruitless love. We are not fecund. We create no evil. For us, life is all. No false conception of immortality. No sons to jibe at us. No soul to perish in eternal damnation. No jealous wives hovering over us, no laws barring our free association with each other."

The mild monk—he was, Ken learned, a university