Karl sat and let the world play and was aware of himself and was aware sharply that he was at ease as he had never been before. Yet it was ease, for he knew it so, and somehow he remembered. A voice very thin, articulate like the faint etch of acid on a copper plate, from his side: “I shall call you what you like as we sit here. My name is Peter Dawes. What shall I call you?” Karl answered: “I have no name.” “You call me Dawes, then,” said the bearded tramp, “and I shall call you Peter.” Karl-Peter nodded within himself, to himself he nodded. The tramp went on: “Across the city the sun goes down. It will soon go down to the Palisades. They are high there, that makes the sun low. Do you see?” He was looking eastward. Karl-Peter nodded within himself, to himself he nodded. “Look at the little park,” said the bearded tramp. From the park’s straight plane, the sun was away. The hands of the westward trees were empty. But beyond his shoulder, above the wall of tenements stood a flame: it leapt into the sky and fell upon the park. The park was thick now with stillness. It was low and leaden-green: it was thickly still under the leaping glow of the sun that was not there. Within it, moving ... steadfast in Karl’s eyes ... were busy men. They pressed to and fro, furtive, intent, secret from one another. The two boys at tether-ball kept exchanging places: the game was forever the same. Under Karl’s eyes was the black face of the long-nosed man. All of it that was not under hair was under grime of coal, save the huge nose that was white and the eyes that were clean and hard like a clear, black sky. He spoke: “My name is Theophilus Larch. Thank you, Theophilus.” His quick hand delved into the cuff of Theophilus-Karl’s trouser. It held up the dead cockroach. The long-nosed man had teeth very white; they closed on the cockroach with a joyous crack. The little man of the red mouth was in Karl’s eyes. “My name is Martin Lounton. Call me Lounton, Martin.... And permit me....” He seized Martin-Karl’s hand. He smoothed it with feverish fingers. His lean eyes sought the palm of it and read. He tossed it from him, and was gone, feverishly peering under bench, in grass, for scraps of paper. The black dwarf bowed under Karl’s eyes. “My name is Cæsar Dott. Call me Dott, Cæsar. And allow me to congratulate you upon your wedding. Your bride gave me a favor, from her own hands she gave it. Look, Cæsar....” He raised his trouser leg and there against the obscene mass of blackish flesh was an iron bar, toothed and clamped in the flesh. “It makes my foot go to sleep. I have to wriggle my toes.”... Karl sat still. The strong boy and the idiot who played tether-ball for ever, for ever; the eater of dirt, the dwarf, the picker and reader of scraps ... joined hands. They were unknown to one another. But they knew Karl. They joined hands. They danced.