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not one but two plumber’s snakes, coiled, lashed by lengths of identical nylon cording, and suspended from hooks. I left one and took its mate upstairs, and a moment later Jerry knocked and I opened the door and said, “Hello, I’ve got your snake. Want a cup of coffee?”
    “Sure.”
    I put on water, got down cups, and gestured to Jerry, “Sit, please.” Which Jerry did; he sat at the kitchen table and said, “Nice pit, Pete.”
    “Thanks.” I suggested he get up close and check out Meredith’s spear tips. Then I told him that, in spite of Meredith’s excellent detail work, our pit was nothing compared to his; that his moat was very impressive from an overall engineering standpoint; that his design concept reinforced the thematic statement of the property in general, the house and grounds and so forth. I went on to note that the drawbridge had splendid workmanship in it, and that it was a rare thing to see that kind of wood-peg carpentry these days. I asked Jerry, “Tell me, do you anticipate problems with the moccasins? I mean, are they, do you think, likely to crawl out and, I don’t know, whatever?”
    Water steamed. How had I managed to allow, into my home, this man who released lethal vipers into a residential area? I could hear him exhaling through his mouth, when he insisted, “Precautions have been taken.”
    “Naturally. Of course. Milk and sugar?”
    “Fine.”
    “Decaf okay?”
    “Sure.”
    I measured grounds from bag to filter, took milk from the refrigerator, and said, “The funniest thing happened. I went down to the basement to get the plumber’s snake, and there were two of them. How about that. Two snakes. I knew I had one, I remember buying it, in fact. But not two. It was strange. Two snakes.”
    “Let me get this straight. You thought you had one snake, but there were two?”
    “Right.”
    “That is strange.”
    The pot whistled. I poured boiling water and considered the Freedom Field issue. Specifically, the wisdom of broaching this difficult topic in my own kitchen. You could hear everything in this old house, and Meredith might or might not have been soundly sleeping, and Jerry’s airplane hangar proposal, quixotic though it was, might appeal to my wife. Why risk that? No, my “home school” concept was definitely the way to go. Better keep mum on the subject of Freedom Field. Coffee dripped and I said, witlessly, “At any rate, now if I get a clog while you’ve got one snake, I’ll still be fine, because I’ll have the other.”
    “That’s the truth.”
    “That’d be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it?”
    “I’m of a mind, Pete, that there is no such thing as coincidence. I agree with some of the fellows down at Rotary who say the cosmos abounds in mysteries invisible to us in our waking state, worlds within worlds, and that our task in life is to open our inner eyes, perceive reality in its totality, and embrace the million levels of Universal Consciousness.”
    It was my first indication of the nonsecular nature of the local chapter of Rotary International. It worried me. I sipped coffee and listened to Jerry say, “Friday we’re sponsoring a theriomorphism workshop luncheon at the Holiday Inn—why don’t you and your wife come as my guests?”
    “Oh, gee, well.”
    “This is going to be the Rotary luncheon of the year, not counting your informative and entertaining talk on persuasive methods of the medieval Inquisition. You don’t want to miss this. And Pete?”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s potluck, so, if you could, if you wouldn’t mind contributing a salad?”
    “A salad.” Why didn’t I just say no? Jerry offered, “Or dessert. Dessert or a salad, whichever’s easier. Would that be possible?”
    “Sure, a salad.”
    A nice tossed green one with fresh cherry tomatoes, lots of cukes, red and green bell pepper, basil, watercress, fennel, and many leaves of other things. Together Meredith and I and a crowd of red-faced Rotarians and their well-dressed