I still don't remember how I did it--unless maybe it was by doling out the money slowly and watching their faces until their expressions suggested they had received the full amount--but somehow the awful situation ended and the men went to their cabin. The following morning when I did the day's bookkeeping I found that there was fifty cents too much in the cash drawer. Still, I didn't feel that the system I had used the previous night had much to recommend it, and I resolved not to try it again. Traffic noises along the highway were loud and almost ceaseless--they quieted down a little just often enough to give the next crescendo the greatest possible impact. Planes roared up and down from the airport which was about a block to the southeast; trains whistled and roared along the track that was a block to the south; cars and trucks and busses roared along the highway. The whole highway, in fact, was one big, solid roar. After the first few days, though, the noise faded to the back of my consciousness. The peal of the office bell would rouse me instantly, even if I were working in a cabin several doors away, but the sky-shattering whine of jet-propelled planes made no impression on me at all. Travelers and newcomers to the vicinity nearly always commented on the noise. Often they'd have to raise their voices to be heard above it. I got so used to the noise that when someone would yell above the din, "What an awful racket that train makes'." I'd shriek back, "What train?" I was beginning to become acquainted with some of our neighbors. Moe, the bald, thick-set, beak-nosed man who owned the restaurant next door, had a son, Moejy (no doubt a corruption of Moe, Jr.) who was about a year older than David. The first moment I laid eyes on Moejy I had a premonition that he would turn out to be the most obnoxious child I had ever encountered--a premonition which, as later events were to prove, was correct. He was a wiry boy with a small head, close set ears, and eyes that darted about continually in search of insects to be dismembered or walls to be scribbled on. He was about a head taller than David, and in the second grade. For the first few days after we took possession of the motel, he and David were inseparable. Directly to the east of us, between us and the imposing Peacock, was a four-unit motel that was unfinished and had no neon sign. The owner of the place was a tall, gaunt black-haired old man with a curiously pink chin. His name, I had learned, was Featherbrain; and I reflected that he must posses more sterling and endearing qualities than were immediately visible, to have inspired in the woman who married him such affection that she was willing to accept him, name and all.