be developed into a living, breathing, glib automaton, responsive to every order of his master, jester, body-servant and slave. Twenty-four hours after Ken had met Tommy he knew that Tommy would accompany him to New York, where they would live together. Ken tried to believe that he would be very happy with Tommy. His attempt to be pleasant to Lou had failed. He wanted no nonsensically gaga daughter with beaming mother attached. Nor did he want an intellectual overlord such as Howard had been. In Tommy he had found a friend, Ken wanted to believe; one who would pay for his keep with honeyed words and devotion. As Ken watched the city engulf the train, speeding past factory towns, thence into marsh lands of New Jersey, deep beneath the river into the Hudson tube and at last in the long concrete and steel underworld of the terminal, doubt assailed him. New York, his again to conquer. New York, city of false friends, ambush where his enemies lay concealed—why could he not face it alone? The question rose unanswered. Why Tommy? Why anyone? Why not be self-sufficient, conserving money and strength for the coming struggle? Who was Tommy? Was he to be trusted? Might he not be another of those lazy do-nothings, parasites, beardless boys who, he knew now, would grow into languid half-men? Was he himself really one of them? Hopelessly so?
It was too late to reconsider. Tommy was his and for the present, his he would remain.
The city seemed much the same, streets as crowded, buildings in their familiar places, the city's cries as varied; taxicabs sped by to the staccato tattoo of riveting, beneath the limited field of a concrete-walled sky.
He decided to live on Seventy-second Street. He chose
