"I was putting on a demonstration. A defective timer set off a charge of HE fifty seconds early on a one-minute setting. A student was killed; I got off easy with a busted eardrum and a pound or two of gravel imbedded in my back. When I got out of the hospital, the army felt real bad about letting me go--but they did. My terminal leave pay gave me a big weekend in San Francisco and set me up in business as a private investigator." I took another long pull at a big pewter tankard of ale and went on. "I had enough left over after the bankruptcy proceeding a few months later to get me to Las Vegas. I lost what was left and took a job with a casino operator named Gonino. "I stayed with Gonino for nearly a year. Then one night a visiting bank clerk lost his head and shot him eight times with a .22 target pistol. I left town the same night." * * * * * I swallowed some more of Foster's ale. It was the best. Foster was a pretty good egg, too. "After that I sold used cars for a couple of months in Memphis; then I made like a life guard at Daytona; baited hooks on a thirty foot tuna boat out of Key West; all the odd jobs with low pay and no future. I spent a couple of years in Cuba; all I got out of that was two bullet scars on the left leg, and a prominent position on a CIA blacklist. "After that things got tough. A man in my trade can't really hope to succeed in a big way without the little blue card in the plastic cover to back his play. I was headed south for the winter, and I picked Mayport to run out of money." I stood up. "I sure enjoyed the bath, Mr. Foster, and the meal, too--not to mention the beer. I'd like real well to get in that bed upstairs and have a night's sleep just to make it complete; but I'm not interested in the job." I turned away, started across the room. "Legion," Foster said. I turned. A beer bottle was hanging in the air in front of my face. I put a hand up fast and the bottle slapped my palm. "Not a bad set of reflexes for a man whose adventures are all behind him," Foster said. I tossed the bottle aside. "If I'd missed, that would have knocked my teeth out," I said angrily. "You didn't miss--even though you're weaving a little from the beer. And a man who can feel a pint or so of beer isn't an alcoholic--so you're clean on that score." "I didn't say I was ready for the rummy ward," I said. "I'm just not interested in your proposition--whatever it is." "Legion," Foster said, "maybe you have the idea I put that ad in the paper last week, on a whim. The fact is, I've been running it--in one form or another--for over eight years." I looked at him and waited. "Not only locally--I've run it in the big-city papers, and in some of the national weekly and monthly publications. All together, I've had perhaps fifty responses."