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Rh "You're not too warm, are you, Gracey?" he asked. "I'm a comfortable sort myself."

"And frank?" Ken asked.

"Yes. Why not?"

"I've heard of you, of course," Ken explained. "I've always been happening upon fellows who studied drama with you or who played up here in the summertime."

"Yes—I'm getting ready for our opening performance, five weeks away. Three fellows are here with me now. Bill Paige, who paints my scenery, saw you careening over the bridge and switched on the flood lights over the barn. That saved your life."

"Damned nice of him," Ken said. "I wonder if my life is worth saving."

"Another of my boys, Dud Sweetzer, saw you dance two seasons ago, in New York. He tells me you're a natural dancer, wasted in musical comedy. He thinks you ought to be developed. Is that the reason why you are unhappy, because you are disappointed in your ambitions?"

"No—not at all."

"You see—you were really horribly drunk the other day. You instinctively plugged down on the brakes or you would have gone on into Norse Inlet, and the mud would have got you."

"I wasn't trying to commit suicide," said Ken. "I had been drunk for about a week. I recall vaguely that someone said you were the wise man of Norse Inlet, that your boys worshipped you and that you knew all the answers. I drove up here, nipping all the way. I didn't really know where I was until a filling station man said, 'That road goes to Norse Inlet. Isn't that where Grant Beckett carries on? I asked. He said, Yes, the old guy is sorta queer.'