It shook me a little. Here was a Regional Director talking about the rations supplied under the Company's Blue Plate coverage as "slop." Oh, I wasn't naive enough to think that no one talked that way. There were a certain number of malcontents anywhere. I'd heard that kind of talk, and even worse, once in a while from the Class-D near-uninsurables, the soreheads with a grudge against the world who blamed all their troubles on the Company and bleated about the "good old days." Mostly they did their bleating when it was premium time, I'd noticed. But I certainly never expected it from Gogarty. Still--it was his party. And he seemed like a pretty nice guy. I had to allow him the defects of his virtues, I decided. If he was less reverent to the Company than he should have been, at least by the same token he was friendly and democratic. He had at least twenty years seniority on me, and back at the Home Office a mere Claims Adjuster wouldn't have been at the same table with a Regional Director. And here he was feeding me better than I had ever eaten in my life, talking as though we were equals, even (I reminded myself) seeing to it that we had the young ladies to keep us company. * * * * * We were hours at dinner, hours and endless glasses of wine, and we talked continually. But the conversation never came close to official business. The girl Rena was comfortable to be with, I found. There was that deep, eternal sadness in her eyes, and every once in a while I came up against it in the middle of a laugh; but she was soft-voiced and pleasant, and undeniably lovely. Marianna had been prettier, I thought, but Marianna's voice was harsh Midwest while Rena's-- I stopped myself. When we were on our after-dinner liqueurs, Rena excused herself for a moment and, after a few minutes, I spotted her standing by a satin-draped window, looking wistfully out over a balcony. Gogarty winked. I got up and, a little unsteadily, went over to her. "Shall we look at this more closely?" I asked her. She smiled and we stepped outside. Again I was looking down on the Bay of Naples--a scene painted in moonlight this time, instead of the orange hues of sunset. It was warm, but the Moon was frosty white in the sky. Even its muddled reflection in the slagged waters was grayish white, not yellow. There was a pale orange halo over the crater of Mount Vesuvius, to our left; and far down the coast a bluish phosphorescence, over the horizon, marked Pompeii. "Beautiful," I said. She looked at me strangely. All she said was, "Let's go back inside." Gogarty greeted us. "Looking at the debris?" he demanded jovially. "Not much to see at night. Cheer up, Tom. You'll see all the damage you want to see over the next few days." I said, "I hope so, sir."