And De Grasse, tortured soul, who had once more shown himself willing to sacrifice himself to any loyalty he felt. Even Monk, even Spider, lived not for himself but for Rack. There were all the traditional virtues, dripping their traditional gore: nobility, self-sacrifice, patience, even generosity. By any test except the test of results, Rack was a great man and Burgess another. And the test of results was a two-edged razor: for by that test, Cudyk himself was a total failure, a nonentity. He thought, _We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men...._ When every action led to disaster, those who did nothing were damned equally with those who acted. * * * * * Someone touched Cudyk's arm as he left Chong Yin's. He turned and saw that it was Ferguson. "I've got something to say to you, Cudyk. I saw you were busy talking to Father Exarkos in there, so I didn't bother you. Besides, it's private. Come on down to my place." The man was doing him an honor, Cudyk realized, in approaching him personally instead of sending an underling. And now, as Ferguson stood waiting for him to reply, Cudyk saw that there was something curiously like appeal in his eyes. "All right, if you wish," he said. "But I will have to go back to the shop within an hour--Nick has not had his lunch." "I won't keep you that long," Ferguson said. They turned at the corner and walked down Washington, past Town Hall to The Little Bear. Beyond this point, everything was Ferguson's: the dance hall, the casino, the bawdy house, the two cafes and three bars, and the two huge warehouses at the end of the avenue. But it was the casino that Ferguson meant when he said "my place". A white-aproned boy got up hurriedly and opened the heavy doors when they approached. Ferguson strode past without looking at him, and Cudyk followed across the long, empty room. Dust covers shrouded the roulette table, the chuck-a-luck layout, faro, chemin-de-fer, dice and poker tables. The bar was deserted, bottles and glasses neatly stacked. Ferguson led the way up a short flight of stairs to the overhanging balcony at the end of the room. He opened the door with a key--a rarity in the Quarter, since cylinder locks were available only by scavenging on Earth, and had to be imported, whereas a mechanism used by the Niori as a mathematical toy could be readily adapted into an efficient combination lock. The low-ceilinged room was furnished with a blond-wood desk and swivel chair, a long, pale green couch and two chairs upholstered in the same fabric: all Earth imports, scavenged from stocks manufactured before the Collapse. The carpet was a deeper green. There were three framed pictures on the walls: a blue-period Picasso, a muted oyster-white and grey Utrillo and a small Roualt clown. Ferguson was watching him. "Just like my place in Chicago," he said. "You never saw it before, did you?" "No," Cudyk said. "I have never been in the Casino until now."