Helen called to me from the living room. “Joe.”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“Did you talk to Bill?”

“Bill? About what?”

“About the trading.”

“No. I guess I forgot.”

“Well, you’ll have to. He’s at it again. He traded Jimmy out of that new bicycle. Gave him a lot of junk. I made him give back the bicycle.

“I’ll have a talk with him,” I promised again.

But I’m afraid I wasn’t paying as close attention to the ethics of the situation as I should have been…

You couldn’t keep a thing around the house. You were always losing this or that. You knew just where you’d put it and you were sure it was there and then, when you went to look for it, it had disappeared.

It was happening everywhere—things being lost and never turning up.

But other things weren’t left in their places—at least not that you heard about.

Although maybe there had been times when things had been left that a man might pick up and examine and not know what they were and puzzle over, then toss in a comer somewhere and forget.

Maybe, I thought, the junkyards of the world were loaded with outlandish blocks and crazy fishing rods.

I got up and went into the living-room, where Helen had turned on the television set.

She must have seen that something had me upset, because she asked, “What’s the matter now?”

“I can’t find the fountain-pen.”

She laughed at me. “Honestly, Joe, you’re the limit. You’re always losing things.”

That night, I lay awake after Helen went to sleep and all I could think about was the dot upon the desk. A dot, perhaps, that said: Put it right here, partner, and we will make a swop.

And, thinking of it, I wondered what would happen if someone moved the desk.

I lay there for a long time, trying not to worry, trying to tell myself it didn’t matter, that I was insane to think what I was thinking.