He nods.

The ticket seller sets the coin to one side, hands himhis pasteboard and his change.

He enters the lobby, looks about, follows the others.

"No smoking inside. Fire law."

"Oh. Sorry."

Dropping his cigar into a nearby receptacle, he surrenders his ticket and passes within. He pauses at thehead of an aisle to regard the screen before him, moveson when jostled, finds a seat to his left, takes it.

He settles back and lets his warm feeling enfold him.It is a strange night. Lost, why had he come in? A placeto sit? A place to hide? A place to be warm with impersonal human noises about him? Curiosity?

All of these, he decides, while his thoughts roam overthe varied surface of life, and the post-orgasmic sadnessfades to tenderness and gratefulness.

His shoulder is touched. He turns quickly.

"Just me," says the student. "Show'U be starting in afew minutes. You ever read the Marquis de Sade?"

"Yes."

"What do you think of him?**

"A decadent dilettante."

"Oh."

The student settles back and assumes a thoughtfulpose. The man returns his eyes to the front of the theater.

After a time, the houselights grow dim and die. Thenthe screen is illuminated. The words The Kiss of Deathflash upon it. Soon they are succeeded by human figures.The man leans forward, his brow furrowed. He turns andstudies the slant of light from the projection booth, dustmotes drifting within it He sees a portion of the equipment. He turns again to the screen and his breathingdeepens.

He watches all the actions leading to the movements ofpassion as time ticks about him. The theater is still. Itseems that he has been transported to a magical realm.The people around him take on a supernatural quality,blank-faced in the light reflected from the screen. Theback of his neck grows cold, and it feels as if the hairsare stirring upon it Still, he suppresses a desire to riseand depart, for there is something frightening, too, tothe vision. But it seems important that he see it through.He leans back again, watching, watching the flickeringspectacle before him.

There is a tightening in nis belly as he realizes what isfinally to occur, as he sees the knife, the expression onthe girl's face, the sudden movements, the writhing, theblood. As it continues, he gnaws his knuckle and beginsto perspire. It is real, so real...

"Oh my!" he says and relaxes.

The warmth comes back to him again, but he continues to watch, until the last frame fades and the lightscome on once again.

"How'd you like it?" says the voice at bis backHe does not turn.

"It is amazing," he finally says, "that they can makepictures move on a screen like that."He hears the familiar chuckle, then, "Care to join mefor a cup of coffee? Or a drink?"

"No, thanks. I have to be going."

He rises and hurries up the aisle, back toward the fogmasked city where he had somehow lost his way.

"Say, you forgot your package!"

But the man does not bear. He is gone.

The student raises it, weighs it in his palm, wonders.When he finally unwraps the folded Times, it is not onlythe human heart it contains which causes his sharp intakeof breath, but the fact that the paper bears a date inNovember of 1888.

"Oh, Lord!" he says. "Let him find his way homel"

Outside, the fog begins to roll and break, and the windmakes a small rustling noise as it passes. The longshadow of the man, lost in his love and wonder, moveslike a blade through the city and November and thenight.

I wrote this one for The Saturday Evening Post andthey asked me to cut it to 4500 words. It is 9000 wordsin length. Crossing out every other word made it soundfunny, so I didn't.

The three muggers who stopped him that October nightin San Francisco did not anticipate much resistance fromthe old man, despite his size. He was well-dressed, andthat was sufficient.

The first approached him with his hand extended. Theother two hung back a few paces.

"Just give me your wallet and your watch," the muggersaid. "You'll save yourself a lot of trouble."

The old man's grip shifted on his walking stick. Hisshoulders straightened. His shock of white hair tossed aahe turned his head to regard the other.

"Why don't you come and take them?"

The mugger began another step but he never completed it. The stick was almost invisible in the speed ofits swinging. It struck him on the left temple and he fell.Without pausing, the old man caught the stick by itsmiddle with his left hand, advanced and drove it into thebelly of the next nearest man. Then, with an upwardhook as the man doubled, he caught him in the softnessbeneath the jaw, behind the chin, with its point. As theman fell, he clubbed him with its butt on the back ofthe neck.

The third man had reached out and caught the oldman's upper arm by then. Dropping the stick, the oldman seized the mugger's shirtfront with his left hand, hisbelt with his right, raised him from the ground until heheld him at arm's length above his-head and slammedhim against the side of the building to his right, releasinghim as he did so.

He adjusted his apparel, ran a hand through his hairand retrieved his walking stick. For a moment he regarded the three fallen forms, then shrugged and continued on his way.

There were sounds of traffic from somewhere off tohis left. He turned right at the next comer. The moonappeared above tall buildings as he walked. The smell ofthe ocean was on the air. It had rained earlier and thepavement still shone beneath streetlamps. He movedslowly, pausing occasionally to examine the contents ofdarkened shop windows.

After perhaps ten minutes, he came upon a side streetshowing more activity than any of the others he hadpassed. There was a drugstore, still open, on the comer,a diner farther up the block, and several well-lightedstorefronts. A number of people were walking along thefar side of the street. A boy coasted by on a bicycle. Heturned there, his pale eyes regarding everything hepassed.

Halfway up the block, he came to a dirty window onwhich was painted the word READINGS. Beneath it weredisplayed the outline of a hand and a scattering of playing cards. As he passed the open door, he glanced inside.A brightly garbed woman, her hair bound back in agreen kerchief, sat smoking at the rear of the room. Shesmiled as their eyes met and crooked an index finger, toward herself. He smiled back and turned away, but ...

He looked at her again. What was it? He glanced at his watch.

Turning, he entered the shop and moved to stand be-fore her. She rose. She was small, barely over five feet inheight.

"Your eyes," he remarked, "are green. Most gypsies Iknow have dark eyes."

She shrugged.

"You take what you get in life. Have you a problem?"

"Give me a moment and I'll think of one," he said. "Ijust came in here because you remind me of someoneand it bothers me—I can't think who."\ "Come into the back," she said, "and sit down. We'lltalk."

He nodded and followed her into a small room to therear. A threadbare oriental rug covered the floor nearthe small table at which they seated themselves. Zodiacal prints and faded psychedelic posters of a semireligious nature covered the walls, A crystal ball stood ona small stand in the far comer beside a vase of cutflowers. A dark, long-haired cat slept on a sofa to theright of it. A door to another room stood slightly ajarbeyond the sofa. The only illumination came from acheap lamp on the table before him and from a smallcandle in a plaster base atop the shawl-covered coffeetable.

He leaned forward and studied her face, then shookhis head and leaned back.