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anything further of it: Wesley’s brooding presence, the sounds of the street gathering tempo for a new day, the gay sunshine’s warmth, and the music from a nearby radio store all seemed to remove this pinched little face with the sad eyes to a place far off, lonely, and forgotten, to unreal realm that was as inconsequential as the tiny bit of celluloid paper he held between his fingers. Bill handed back the picture and could say nothing. Wesley did not look at the picture, but slid it back into his wallet, saying: “Where do we buy the eggs?”
    â€œEggs . . .” echoed Everhart, adjusting his spectacles slowly. “Up ahead two blocks.”
    On the way back, laden with packages, they said very little. In front of a bar, Wesley pointed toward it and
smiled faintly: “Come on, man, let’s go in and have a little breakfast.”
    Everhart followed his companion into the cool gloom of the bar, with its washed aroma and smell of fresh beer, and sat near the window where the sun poured in through the French blinds in flat strips. Wesley ordered two beers. Everhart glanced down and noticed his friend wore no socks beneath his moccasin shoes; they rested on the brass rail with the calm that seemed part of his whole being.
    â€œHow old are you, Wes?”
    â€œTwenty-seven.”
    â€œHow long have you been going to sea?”
    The beers were placed before them by a morose bartender; Bill threw a quarter on the mahogany top of the bar.
    â€œSix years now,” answered Wesley, lifting the golden glass to the sun and watching the effervescence of many minute bubbles as they shot upward.
    â€œBeen leading a pretty careless life, haven’t you?” Everhart went on. “Port debaucheries, then back to sea; and on that way . . .”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œYou’d never care to plant some roots in society, I suppose,” mused the other.

    â€œTried it once, tried to plant some roots, as you say . . . I had a wife and a kid coming, my job was a sure thing, we had a house.” Wesley halted himself and drank down the bitter thoughts. But he resumed: “Split up after the kid died stillborn, all that sort of guff: I hit the road, bummed all over the U.S.A., finally took to shipping out.”
    Everhart listened sympathetically, but Wesley had said his piece.
    â€œWell,” sighed Bill slapping the bar, “I find myself, at thirty-two, an unusually free and fortunate man; but honestly I’m not happy.”
    â€œSo what!” countered Wesley. “Bein’ happy’s O.K. in its place; but other things count more.”
    â€œThat’s the sort of statement I should make, or anyone of the creative artists whose works I talk on,” considered the other, “but as for you, a doubtlessly devil-may-care roué with a knack for women and a triple capacity for liquor, it seems strange. Aren’t you happy when you’re blowing your pay in port?”
    Wesley waved a disgusted hand: “Hell no! What else can I do with money? I ain’t got no one to send it to but my father and one of my married brothers, and when that’s done, I still got too much money—I throw it away, practically. I’m not happy then.”
    â€œWhen are you happy?”

    â€œNever, I guess; I get a kick out of a few things, but they don’t last; I’m talkin’ about the beach now.”
    â€œThen you are happy at sea?”
    â€œGuess so . . . I’m home then anyway, and I know my work and what I’m doin’. I’m an A.B., see . . . but as to bein’ happy at sea, I don’t really know. Hell, what is happiness nohow?” Wesley asked with a trace of scorn.
    â€œNo such thing?” suggested Bill.
    â€œYou hoppin’ skippin’ Goddamn right!” asserted Wesley, smiling and shaking his head.
    Bill called for two more beers.
    â€œMy old man is a bartender in Boston,” confided Wesley.