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Rh poet's hair should ramble. He had just recited his newest poem, "Nostalgia," as Kari began to serve the Lachrymae Christi.

Gregory Gregg was, despite his coloring, soft-voiced and mousey. Had he had a less dominant mother, he might have become, thought Mr. Lowell, a notion salesman in a department store.

However, his mother had desired a poet in the family and she had had her wish. He was now inditing an ode to Bacchus who, poor sprite, had been driven from the rich hillside vineyards of California to dismal tenement rooms, where his devotees concocted potent libations to a god in disgrace.

Ken sat amid these guests on a high, square chrome and leather chair. He was flushed with the liquor and rather uncomfortable.

"Play something for us, La," Pierre Fortand suggested. "Something in the midsummer mood, 'L'Après-midi d'un Faune,' s'il vous plait." The others chimed in with requests for this composition, and that.

"I'll play," said Mr. Lowell, "if you'll all promise to drift away. Because the Judge is here tonight is no reason for formality. He has, in a manner of speaking, taken the veil. Haven't you, Minerva?"

The Judge coughed dryly. "In the code of the Greeks, I am learned—" he snapped. The others, except Ken, laughed.

"That's all I wanted to know," chirped Gregory Gregg. "I shall write a sonnet to swooning Justice … or should I say Justicia?"

"You should," replied Judge Wardell. "Indeed—" he sipped the wine—"I sometimes find the gown I wear in