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different. “If I was half a man,” he whispered, “just half a man, I’d kill myself.” Which sent shivers up me because not ten minutes earlier he had been so obviously in love with life you almost wanted to cry. “I’m an old man, boys,” he went on. “With nothing to live for. So you’d be doing me a favor if you’d do the job for me.”
    “Stop that,” I said.
    “It’s the truth,” Kavanaugh whispered. “There was an epidemic in my village when I was a boy. It caught my mother and it caught my sister and I would to God it had caught me too. For there’s nothing to this life but suffering and getting old and it’s better to be done before it starts.”
    “Stop,” I said again.
    “There’ll come a day when you’ll bless me for what I’m telling you,” he said, and we had to strain to hear. “You’ll see.”
    Right then, Zock took over.
    Reaching across me, he grabbed Kavanaugh by the shoulder. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Could you use something to eat?” After a minute, Kavanaugh nodded. Zock stood. “We’ve got twenty-six cents,” he said. “And you’re welcome to it.” He lifted Kavanaugh, me helping, and carried him along until we found a coffee place. Putting him at a stool by the counter, Zock bought him twenty-six cents worth of food. By the time he was through eating, he was quoting Shakespeare again.
    Out on the street, we shook hands. “My mother in heaven will pray for you every night,” he said.
    “Thank you,” Zock said. “We can use it. Good-by.”
    “Good-by,” I echoed.
    “Fine lads the both of you,” Kavanaugh said, walking away.
    “People like that,” Zock said. “Just give them a loaf of bread and the sun is shining.” The last we saw of him, he was staggering along the street, waving his arms for balance, bowing to each and every person who passed by.
    Leaving us stuck in Chicago, hungry, thirsty, and broke. We tried walking, but pretty soon Zock gave out. “I’ve had enough,” he said. “What about you?”
    “I suppose.”
    “Well, then drag me to a telephone.”
    “Home?”
    Zock shook his head. “I’ve got cousins in Chicago,” he answered. We found a phone where he made a call, coming out smiling. “She’ll be right down, Euripides.”
    “Who will?”
    “My cousin Sadie,” he said. So we sat down on the curb to wait for her.
    Even if I could talk like Kavanaugh, I couldn’t come close to describing her. Sadie Griffin. That was her name and she came roaring up a little later, driving a white convertible with the top down. Zock waved to her. I was about to do the same, but when I saw her close up, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but stare.
    I have never seen, either on the street or in the movies or any place else, a girl as beautiful as Sadie Griffin. She had long golden hair and from just looking at her you knew that if she’d been around when Paris was fiddling with the Golden Apples, then Helen would have stayed home with Menelaus and there never would have been a Trojan War.
    She lived with her folks in a big apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. They fed us, first calling up Athens, and after a while, Sadie Griffin drove us home. I stared at her all the way, hardly ever talking. Toward the end of the trip she began teasing me about it, which only made me clam up more. She was eighteen years old that summer and getting ready to start college. Just eighteen years old, just five more than me, but I couldn’t have been more tongue-tied talking to God Almighty Himself.
    Back home there was the usual scolding together with some minor punishment, none of which proved too troublesome. And the summer went fast afterward, seeing as we had so much to talk about. There was Kavanaugh and Mr. Hardecker and sometimes Sadie Griffin. But most of all there was Gunga Din, the poor old water carrier who saved the British troops by blowing that bugle from right on top of the temple of gold.
    And besides helping the summer to pass, that trip