David lay back in his rocker, with his legs out straight and the mist of his pipe rising above his upturned head. He was comfortable: above his waist his body huddled in a condition of collapse that made the rigid straightness of his legs and of his arms falling down by his side a comical diversion. Tom looked at him from his rush seat chair, direct and simple. He sat at ease, straight. He picked a paper from the floor, but below his waist his posture was unaltered. His head moved on his neck like a hinge: his torso moved on his hips like a hinge. There was David reaching for a match: his legs shifting, his chin dropping upon his chest. David’s arms went out, and he yawned. His body was rigid. It seemed to press out the energy of words: “Oh--_O!_ I am sleepy.” Tom laughed. He had come in far later--from a dance. He had been up an hour earlier. “Why don’t you lie down, then?” David’s eyes seemed to exercise command over his sluggish state. They thought the idea a good one. The big body lifted heavily from the chair, went wide and down to the floor. David lay on his back. Tom looked at him. He could have raised his foot and placed it on David’s stomach. One hand, palm upward, slumbered directly beside Tom’s chair. Tom could have stepped on it. The temptation ran humorously through him. “Why you should be sleepy, my dear man! I’ll bet you slept ten hours.” “Well,” after a pause, “it’s Sunday.” Tom laughed again. “You’re still a lazy country lout.” David snorted and smiled. He rolled his generous round head away from Tom and closed his eyes. Since his eyes alone had borne the quality of resistance that was his space in the world, David lay prone and altogether passive: he was a little like a flame that has been extinguished. Tom began to contemplate his friend. David breathed deep and low. Looking and pondering, Tom came to breathe in unison. His shorter, tighter body made this anomalous. They breathed together. But David was sleeping. Tom’s breath brought him discomfort. A tithe of it he discharged by stirring his foot to within an inch of David’s hand. It stayed there. He was forward in his seat. His gaze went forward fixed on some vague moving object that swung in a pure parabola away. All of him followed.