Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 9 (1943-01).djvu/75

 he was beginning to suffer. At least he had surely reached the point of irritation. I thought this cutaneous irritability might be the reason for his outburst against the fair sex. At least there was no other obvious reason. To make his antipathy toward women in general all the stronger he repeated the idea with variations.

"I just don't like them. They do things differently; they think differently. I can't even say that I believe they think; perhaps they just react to their emotions. Why, I have seen women calmly do things that a man wouldn't think of. Fond of books?" he asked abruptly changing the subject.

"You bet!" I replied enthusiastically. "Ought to be. I collect and bind them as an avocation. I make some money by binding and spend it collecting. Make a specialty of early Pennsylvania imprints."

"I have some really nice books." He sighed as he said it. "A few of them are distinctly rare. Odd! I'm a binder myself. Must get out of here now. I can stand just so much and then the heat worries me."

He walked out, a rather portly, middle-aged man. Ten minutes later I followed him. An hour later I caught up with him in the sun-ray room. He was exposing his back to the lamps. I looked at that back; sat down quietly on the cot next to his, continuing to look, incredulous. At last I was satisfied that what I saw on his skin was really there and not an illusion, then I made myself comfortable on my cot and began to ponder this thing. I had never seen anything like that back. Not once, on all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of men I had examined in the army had I ever seen a back approaching the like of that one.

Of course it was something that could not be discussed, certainly nothing one man could ask about directly; but if he offered to talk of it freely, of his own accord, it would certainly be interesting.

After the alcohol rub I invited him to have a snack of refreshment. Wrapped in sheets we became better acquainted over a Swiss sandwich and a cup of coffee. We found that, being bookbinders, we had much in common. He was an older man than I by perhaps twenty years and when I told him of having bound an Erotica in the skin of a diamond back rattler, for a customer, he acknowledged it to be both a new and unique idea.

"And rather appropriate," he added, "because it would not have been erotica without having a woman in it for villian, and if a woman is not a rattlesnake, I'd have you tell me just what she is."

I agreed with him. At least I let him think I did. His almost violent dislike of women intrigued me and I wanted his explanation of why he felt as he did. But more than that, I wanted the story I was sure was connected with his back. So I sat there, expounding largely on all the strange behavior of women which I had observed in my medical practice; called them traitors; cited history to prove them scheming, devious and cruel.

All the while I was talking thus I was glad I was in the bathhouse instead of my own home, where my wife might hear me. Of course she would have known I was just egging him on but she never did like it if I gave my opinion of her sisters.

It all ended by his inviting me to visit him the next time I was in Boston. The address he gave was in the Back Bay section. I told him I expected to visit his city soon and he replied that the sooner the better pleased he would be; and added with a sly wink:

"Do you suppose you could bring some rattlesnake skins?"

HREE weeks later I sat in his library. It was an aristocrat's room done in natural burled walnut panels between wide and well-filled glass-enclosed bookcases