"Is this Phil Wylie?" It was a man's voice--bland, on the booster side. "Yo." I was not very enthusiastic about being Phil Wylie. "This is Socker Melton. Friend of your father. He told me to look you up, here--and I've tried a time or two before now. Glad to catch you in. May I come up?" What do you do? I told him I was working hard--on a rush operation--but to come up anyhow. Then I raged around the sitting room for a bit. Christ badger every old friend of the family! The oaf's knock was pompous. Bonk and pause, bonk and pause, bonk. Like the pass-signal to a kid's shanty. I opened the door, being careful to cling to the knob. My dimmest view was justified. Socker Melton was a big chum--sixty-two or -three and about two-hundred and twenty-five. He had a face that would have been square if he'd sacrificed his extra chin--large, blue, eager-beaver eyes--a babyish snub nose--and a rather thick mouth, not very clearly defined; but there was nothing repulsive in the ensemble--he looked like a star Buick salesman. He wore--maybe I should say sported, since he probably thought of it that way--a white flannel suit of a light weight and he carried a panama hat, the sweatband of which was earning its keep. A poor day for those big boys and I felt sorry for him. His clerical collar was doing its best to stand up for Jesus--but there were folds in it and his black dickey was mussed. I propped the door open. He inventoried the place after a passing gander at me. You could see that he liked nice things--and the Astolat is well heeled. His eye rested especially on some mirror-backed hanging shelves. "I hate to intrude like this--" "Any friend of pop's--" I said. He gave the panama a scale--to show me he was an informal guy like me--and dropped into one of my chairs. The thing squeaked hard and braced itself. I figured to be charming for about ten minutes. I'm a sucker for people who get to see me, anyway. I like most people--as individuals, to begin with; and although I do what I can--and the family does what it can--to keep the more extraverted oddities from jimmying doors and peering through bedroom windows, I spend a God-awful amount of time chitchatting with visiting strangers of all sorts. The chair he'd taken was in reach of my MS, so he reached for it. It is possible that he was trying to adjust to the fact that I was wearing only a pair of shorts. "Sounds amusing," he said, after reading a few lines. That was what Gwen had said the night before. I was glad to see the Cloth in agreement with the professionally unclad. Competent magazine fiction should appeal to all tastes. "Pleased that you think so." I told myself that I had no right to be irritated at the preacher's patronizing tone, or at his unasking and uninvited reading of my manuscript. After all, when artists paint in public places, people feel free to look over their shoulders. "I'm the rector of St. Shadows, over on Park," he said. "But don't hold that against me."