"Do I look like a crystal ball?" I snarled. "Sit tight and amuse the crowd with card tricks. I'm going out to find him." And I went ... but somehow I had a feeling that it was a futile gesture. * * * * * I hope the card tricks were good. They had to be to hold that crowd, because it took me three days to find my friend Hank. And I finally located him in--you've guessed it!--the south forty of his farm near Westville. Hank had reverted to the soil. Once again he was clad in coveralls and bulldog shoes. He had turned his back on civilization as a snake discards last year's skin, and the mouth that had once taught pedagogues was again clogged to the incisors with cut plug. He saw me coming across the field, rose and dusted his knees, and shook his head dolefully. "Nope, Jim," he said, "it ain't no use askin'. I ain't a-goin' back!" "Man," I told him, "you're crazy! Don't you know the whole University's in a fever because you skipped out? Why did you go? Helen's all busted up. Don't you love her?" He made a vain, twisting gesture with his hands. His eyes were bleak. "Yup, Jim," he said. "Then for goodness' sakes, why did you do it?" He gulped wretchedly. "I--I can't marry her, Jim. I just can't. That's all there is to it." "Why?" I was sore now. "For Satan's sake, why? Something like this deserves an explanation." "On account," he said, "on account of it wouldn't work." "It wouldn't--" I stared at him. "Come clean!" He said, "I figgered it all out, an' it won't work. Say I married her, Awright. Purty soon, stands to reason, we'd have a youngster. A boy, I figger. Some more years'd pass, he'd grow up. Fust thing you know, he'd be a man hisself, an' he'd up an' fall in love with a girl. "An' it just natcherally stands to reason that him bein' the kind of boy he'd be, an' me bein' the kind of man I am, we'd be sure to have a big ruckus, because--" * * * * * I stared at him. "Because?" "'Cause the kind of girl he'd fall for," said Hank, "would be some durn chorus girl. An'"--Hank's voice was heavy with parental firmness--"they ain't no son of mine is gonna marry no chorus girl!" I felt like yesterday's lettuce. I said faintly, "But--but that's ridiculous, Hank. You can't know--" "I do know, Jim. Afore I met Helen, I never worried none about the future, let every day take care of itself. But when we planned on gettin' hitched, I started figgerin' out the logical results, the results that _had_ to be, by natcheral cause an' effect--" He shrugged. "An' that's the answer. So it's better to never start the chain that'd make us all unhappy." He held out a bronzed paw. "It's been nice knowin' you, Jim. You come visit me once in a while, will you? An' if you ever get in a jam an' I can help, just say the word." I said, "So you mean it, then? The world offers you everything--fame, money, glory, love--and you're going to stay here in this--this cheesy little old turnip patch!"