He jumped, then looked at me with his scared-spaniel eyes, butted his smoke and reached for another. Just watching him was giving me the heebies, but I flashed my old fairy godmom smile. "Jim," he said finally, "I called you because, well, you're a practical guy and can face things in a practical way. I've got to tell _somebody_ about it. I'm--it's driving me crazy, Jim." I stifled a yawn and fixed my smile and found my mind wandering back to the lady's earlobes. Now I'm not against a guy letting down his hair, but I was sure that with Willy it couldn't possibly amount to anymore than another fruitless crush on a model. He had them frequently, but they always fizzled out before the girl got around to compromising him. He was always a foot short of them, but he had money; the usual solution was little more than another illo assignment which required a horsey model of another color. I'd begun to suspect that the cause of neuroses in little artists like Willy was too many here-now gone-tomorrow beautiful babes. Transference, or something like that. It makes them so dizzy they forget which is the real entity--the canvas reproduction or the model. This and other things like a pithless pituitary loosens the screws, and then they make from Bohemia. I don't pretend to be a psychologist, but that's the way it adds up. * * * * * So I was half-thinking of getting the lady at the apartment to give Willy a real down-to-earth tumble when he started his spiel. I must have missed a few paragraphs of his monologue, because when I caught up to the subject I was away off base. "... so I've got to give it up, Jim. If I don't there's no telling what it would lead to. You could--help me, with your drag at the agency you represent. I could do account execking, or maybe be a consultant art director-without-portfolio, anything--" "Whoa down, Willy," I said, startled. "Give up illustrating? Just because of a dame--" Willy shook his head sadly. "She's got nothing to do with anything _else_ I draw. She isn't at all like the models. Oh, I know what a goop I've been about them, but Red has cured me." He paused and looked at me quizzically, shaking his head. "I knew you had a level head, Jim--that's exactly why I've told you this. But even so, your reaction--" He frowned. His hurt-dog eyes narrowed resentfully. "You don't believe me." I cursed myself inwardly for not having paid more attention to him, but his voice was the kind that would put a sympathetic Father Confessor to sleep if he concentrated too hard on it. I'd been prepared to let him get it off his skinny chest, pat him on the back and tell him to leave everything to old Jim Fixit. But the quitting business was a looper. He was too canvas-happy to give it up without a fight.