"How's it going, Ragle?" Black asked, seating himself handily on the edge of the couch. Margo had gone into the kitchen with Junie. At the TV set, Vic was scowling, resentful of the interruption, trying to catch the last of a scene between Caesar and Carl Reiner.

"Clued to the idiot box," Ragle said to Black, meaning it as a parody of Black's utterances. But Black chose to accept it on face value.

"The great national pastime," he murmured, sitting so that he did not have to look at the screen. "I'd think it would bother you, in what you're doing."

"I get my work done," Ragle said. He had got his entry off by six.

On the TV set, the scene ended; a commercial appeared. Vic shut off the set. Now his resentment turned toward advertisers. "Those miserable ads," he declared. "Why's the volume level always higher on ads than on the program? You always have to turn it down."

Ragle said, "The ads usually emanate locally. The program's piped in over the co-ax, from the East."

"There's one solution to the problem," Black said.

Ragle said, "Black, why do you wear those ridiculous-looking tight pants? Makes you look like a swabbie."

Black smiled and said, "Don't you ever dip into the _New Yorker_? I didn't invent them, you know. I don't control men's fashions; don't blame me. Men's fashions have always been ludicrous."

"But you don't have to encourage them," Ragle said.

"When you have to meet the public," Black said, "you're not your own toss. You wear what's being worn. Isn't that right, Victor? You're out where you meet people; you agree with me."