"There's where you're wrong, Mr. Callahan," Kelly had replied. "They may have faded in popularity a bit during the sixties and early seventies when everybody was going hippie. Hell, even fraternities and sororities were closing on campuses all over the country, but that's past now. There's a lot of new money and a lot of new snobs."

Callahan wanted to turn down the job, but the financial rewards offered to him were too much to pass up. Callahan was aware of the country club since he had been born and reared near Houston. Writing the first draft of his inquiries into the country club, he found himself bemused by the whole idea. Here he was hired to save the club from almost certain financial disaster and when he was a young man, he couldn't even go in through the front door.

He pushed open the front doors of the country club and walked over the highly polished mahogany floor boards. He turned right just past the reception area and opened the door to his temporary office. His secretary, the ever-efficient Miss Tyne, offered her usual banal comment about the day.

"Good morning, Mr. Callahan. It's just beau-ti-ful today, isn't it?"

"That it is, Miss Tyne," replied Callahan without glancing at her.

"May I bring you in a cup of coffee?"

"That would be nice. I take it…"

"I remember, Mr. Callahan, black and sweet."

Catch passed through Miss Tyne's office and opened the door to his own and closed it after him. Miss Tyne, a dusty-looking spinster in her early thirties, sighed after him. She pursed her colorless lips and went to the coffee-maker which was sitting on a sideboard. She looked into the mirror of the sideboard and pinched her pale cheeks.

Miss Tyne was not unattractive, neither was she attractive.