'Oh, the doctor is busy as usual,' she said in a cordial voice, turning left down three carpeted steps into the sunken living room. 'I've told the doctor a dozen times that he's just working himself to death, but there's nothing to do with him. He says there's a shortage of experienced physicians now and he's such a humanitarian at heart.'

I could picture the doctor, a little cheap, small-hearted, lecherous, cushy-mouthed, bald-headed, dried-up, parchment-coloured man in his late sixties, who figured he was a killer with the women. He was probably out chasing some chippy chick right then and I caught myself about to say, 'Strictly a humanitarian.'

Instead I said, 'Yes, he is,' lifting my feet high to keep from stumbling over the thick nap of the Orientals. Their house reminded me of a country club in Cleveland where I worked summers when I was in high school; you knew they had dough, you saw it, it was there, you didn't have to guess about it. 'Of course the money he's making ought to compensate in part,' I added evenly.

'Well, we could do without some of the money,' she began. 'It's so hard on all of us. You know Charles, our chauffeur, was drafted, and Norma left us to take a defence job. We only have Clara now, and she's getting so temperamental, I do declare-' She broke off, looking at me. 'Bob, you look very nice tonight. You wear evening attire very well indeed.'

'Almost as if I was a gentleman-or a waiter.' I grinned, dropping into a chair before the fireplace and fumbling for a cigarette. 'The boys out at the shipyard wouldn't know me now.'

She took a seat across from me and smiled graciously. 'I imagine some of the white young men at the shipyard in some of the more advanced departments are college-trained; but I understand our Negro workers are mostly Southern migrants.'

'Oh, there're quite a few Negro college graduates working in the various yards,' I said, and got my cigarette going.