"Well, I always got to worrying that I was going to lose control. In my head I could keep a jump ahead of everything that was happening. I was always seeing fellows walking down to first. I didn't mind them hitting me so much. It was having 'em all walking around just as slow as they liked that got my goat. Sometimes I used to have nightmares about it." "That's funny, maybe you can't pitch," said Peter. "It doesn't make any difference. You've had enough baseball already to help you a lot when you begin to write about it." Pat made no reply. "Don't you think so?" asked Peter a little sharply. "Oh, yes, sir." Peter made no comment. He realized that the sharpness of his tone had checked his advance into the confidence of Pat. That business about the nightmares was better. People didn't tell things like that to strangers. He tried to re-establish the mood. "Speaking of nightmares," said Peter. "There's one I have a lot. Mine is about people running, running along the deck of a ship. I guess it's something left over from that time we had the fight with the submarine on the Espagne. But there isn't any submarine in the dream. It's just the people running that frightens me." Pat merely listened. Peter paused a moment. "That's curious, isn't it?" "Yes, it is," answered Pat. A waiter came up now and took the order. After he went away they were silent. From the big lounging-room came the sound of a man more or less aimlessly fooling with the piano. After a while Peter broke the silence. He would have liked to know something about Pat's thoughts on this career which was being planned for him, and his attitude on the war and religion and women. "Are you in love with anybody and who is she and tell me about her?" Peter would have liked to ask a question like that, but he did not dare. "What have you been doing with yourself?" was what he did ask. "Mostly just hanging around to find out what Mr. Twice was deciding to do with me?" Pat answered. Then there was more silence. The man in the next room was playing louder. "I wish, he'd either play that 'Invitation to the Waltz' or cut it out," said Pat. So that was it. The "Invitation to the Waltz." It suggested to Peter that he bid boldly and offer close confidence in the hope that it would be met in kind. "I wish he wouldn't play the 'Invitation to the Waltz' at all," he said. "That tune always tears me to bits." He waited but Pat said nothing. "I've never talked to you before about your mother. The first time I saw her she danced to that tune ... the 'Invitation to the Waltz.' She's a singer now but she was a dancer then. I don't suppose you even know her name." "Yes," said Pat, "her name is Maria Algarez and she's singing now at the opera in Buenos Aires." "How did you know that? I didn't even know myself that she was in Buenos Aires right now." "I had a letter from her last week," explained Pat.