“I wonder if the Cards will ever win a pennant?”
“Not in our lifetime,” Bill said.
“Gee, they’d go crazy,” Nick said.
“Do you remember when they got going that once before they had the train wreck?”
“Boy!” Nick said, remembering.
Bill reached over to the table under the window for the book that lay there, face down, where he had put it when he went to the door. He held his glass in one hand and the book in the other, leaning back against Nick’s chair.
“What are you reading?”
“Richard Feverel.”
“I couldn’t get into it.”
“It’s all right,” Bill said. “It ain’t a bad book, Wemedge.”
“What else have you got I haven’t read?” Nick asked.
“Did you read the Forest Lovers?”
“Yup. That’s the one where they go to bed every night with the naked sword between them.”
“That’s a good book, Wemedge.”
“It’s a swell book. What I couldn’t ever understand was what good the sword would do. It would have to stay edge up all the time because if it went over flat you could roll right over it and it wouldn’t make any trouble.”
“It’s a symbol,” Bill said.
“Sure” said Nick, “but it isn’t practical.”
“Did you ever read Fortitude?”
“It’s fine,” Nick said. “That’s a real book. That’s where his old man is after him all the time. Have you got any more by Walpole?”
“The Dark Forest,” Bill said. “It’s about Russia.”
“What does he know about Russia?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know. You can’t ever tell about those guys. Maybe he was there when he was a boy. He’s got a lot of dope on it.”
“I’d like to meet him,” Nick said.
“I’d like to meet Chesterton,” Bill said.
