"I've tried to have it repaired and failed," said Amos Handworthy. "But if you can do it, it's worth a thousand dollars to me." * * * * * Manny nodded as though this offer had tipped the balance but in truth it made very little difference to him. Even the following week, when he demonstrated to a full saloon how beautifully the four violins played the Mephisto Waltz, he accepted the check which Amos Handworthy placed in his hand with some puzzlement, not quite connecting it with the maintenance miracle he had just wrought. Handworthy insisted on having the machine play again and again, but after the fourth successful round, Manny had lost interest in the device and was more concerned in downing tequilas than in listening to the music. Later that night, as he lay abed on a rumpled sweat-wet sheet, wondering how in hell he had taken a job in this God-forsaken town in Texas, he remembered dimly that his boss, Mr. Handworthy, had invited him over to the stately Handworthy Mansion. He was not sure when the invitation was for, or whether the occasion was of a business or social character, but he knew that it was mandatory that he come. Fortunately, a handwritten note on gray, unembossed letter paper arrived the following day, confirming the invitation and specifying a dinner date the following Friday evening at eight P.M. Manny's income was a good one and he had eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the country but he had never been to the home of a truly wealthy man before. It was with no little trepidation that he appeared at the door of the Handworthy Mansion and was ushered into the house by the liveried butler who was, to Manny's intense surprise, white. He was somewhat taken aback to find that he was the only dinner guest and that the burden of making conversation would be totally his job. But he found that contrary to his expectation, Amos Handworthy did almost all of the talking. The food was plentiful but not lavish or exotic in character. Mr. Handworthy himself carved out liberal slices off the huge side of beef that was brought in on a great silver salver. And although Mr. Handworthy did not drink it, the wine was carefully chilled and of good (but not the best) quality. Since Manny had been raised in a low income Jewish inhabited section of New York City and had, despite his extensive rootless shifting about the country, no real insight into how anybody else lived, he found himself quite taken with the rambling tales that Amos Handworthy told of his town's history. * * * * * "My father," said Amos Handworthy toward the close of the dinner, "was one of the last frontier marshals and maybe _the greatest_. His draw was reputed to be so fast that the eye could barely follow it and he never missed his target." "But he drank like a fish," he thought, "and spent most of his time at the sporting house on East Maple."