Kitty’s face lighted up. “Please wait,” she begged. “I hear Adrian coming down now. We’re going out for a drive, but I’d like you to meet him first.” The new boarder was perhaps thirty, hardly older than Kitty, and totally unremarkable. Shaking hands, Mr. Marcus cast back through the dry files of his memory and exhausted them without turning up a more ordinary face or figure. Moderately tall, he catalogued: average build, plain face, neutral hair, good teeth and mild blue eyes. The man’s only distinction seemed to be a round, black mole on the left side of his neck, half hidden by his shirt-collar. Politely, Mr. Marcus did not look at it twice. It rather startled him to discover that Kitty had been right. He _did_ like Adrian Hall, at first sight and without reservation. Mr. Marcus was never quite surе what was said during the shaking of hands. He was too absorbed in trying to justify such uncharacteristic regard to do more than nod when Adrian excused himself to hold Kitty’s light coat for her. Hе did retain a bizarre impression when the two of them went out, however, that the new boarder’s mole had shifted from the side to the back of his neck and was watching him with an air of amiable curiosity. The conviction left Mr. Marcus more annoyed than disturbed. He’d have to see an oculist and have his lenses changed again, he told himself resignedly, as he climbed the stairs to his room. Jay Kirby was waiting there for him, crouched against the farther wall like a fearful puppy hiding from the adult pack. No other boarder in Mrs. Ponder’s house would have dared violate Mr. Marcus’ privacy, but Jay enjoyed the privilege of handicap and exercised it. Mr. Marcus sighed when he saw that Jay was suffering, or had just suffered, another of his periodic attacks. His corn-colored hair was wildly touseled, his blue eyes had fallen two octaves darker with stress and there was a wide smear of grime across one sweating cheek. Jay was far too badly shaken to bother with greetings. “You got to do something about this Adrian Hall,” he blurted. “Mr. Marcus, he’s got _spiders_.” Mr. Marcus found the proposition as repellent as it was improbable. Still, the turn of Jay’s latest fantasy intrigued him. Large spiders or small, he wondered, gray or black, poisonous or innocuous, caged or-- “Spiders?” He put his books and bags on the bed. “In his room, you mean?” Jay denied it violently. “On _him_.” Mr. Marcus wondered with some bitterness if nations would ever outgrow their penchant for expedient wars that left men broken as Jay Kirby was broken. Left alone Jay would have been a pleasant young man and a first-rate musician, but with the spirit of him maimed and trembling like a frightened child’s at the edge of nightmare-- Mr. Marcus opened his suitcase. “I brought you a record, Jay--something just released. A New Orleans stomp, the music-shop man said, with an alto sax that--”