【正文】 ind an empty cab, a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps, whom I39。re just bunching everybody up together.39。. I haven39。m afraid, I passed the time paying little sympathetic hospital calls on myself for being obliged to suppress my coughing spells. I had a sustained, cowardly notion, the entire time I was in the room, that I was about to hemorrhage, or, at the very least, fracture a rib, despite the corset of adhesive tape I was wearing. At twenty minutes past four or, to put it another, blunter way, an hour and twenty minutes past what seemed to be all reasonable hope the unmarried bride, her head down, a parent stationed on either side of her, was helped out of the building and conducted, fragilely, down a long flight of stone steps to the sidewalk. She was then deposited almost hand over hand, it seemed into the first of the sleek black hired cars that were waiting, doubleparked, at the curb. It was an excessively graphic moment a tabloid moment and, as tabloid moments go, it had its full plement of eyewitnesses, for the wedding guests (myself among them) had already begun to pour out of the building, however decorously, in alert, not to say goggleeyed, droves. If there 4 was any even faintly lenitive aspect of the spectacle, the weather itself was responsible for it. The June sun was so hot and so glaring, of such multiflashbulblike mediacy, that the image of the bride, as she made her almost invalided way down the stone steps, tended to blur where blurring mattered most. Once the bridal car was at least physically removed from the scene, the tension on the sidewalk especially around the mouth of the canvas canopy, at the curb, where I, for one, was loitering deteriorated into what, had the building been a church, and had it been a Sunday, might have been taken for fairly normal congregationdispersing confusion. Then, very suddenly, the emphasized word came reportedly from the bride39。 had taken what transportation they needed to quit the scene. And, after a somewhat mysterious and bottlenecklike delay (during which I remained peculiarly riveted to the spot), 39。s terrible flue only by the anonymous driver39。s Matron of Honor. She was a hefty girl of about twentyfour or five, in a pink satin dress, with a circlet of artificial fetmenots in her hair. There was a distinctly athletic ethos about her, as if, a year or two earlier, she might have majored in physical education in college. In her lap she was holding a bouquet of gardenias rather as though it were a deflated volleyball. She was seated in the back of the car, hippressed between her husband and a tiny elderly man in a top hat and cutaway, who was holding an unlighted clearHavana cigar. Mrs Silsburn and I our respective inside knees unribaldly touchingoccupied the jump seats. Twice, without any excuse whatever, out of sheer approval, I glanced around at the tiny elderly man. When I39。t you Dickie Briganza?39。 I think you39。m not exactly a friend of 39。s all.39。s hat that someone had nervously picked out of the incinerator. His face was sallow and, essentially, dauntedlooking. He was perspiring with an almost incredible profusion on his forehead, on his upper lip, and even at the end of his nose to the point where a salt tablet might have been in order. 39。Just two minutes that39。Did anyone see any of his people at the wedding?39。 he asked and winked indiscriminately at me. 39。 I39。 She suspended animation just long enough to be bolstered by a look of simulated empathy from Mrs Silsburn. Mrs Silsburn and I were now turned pletely, supersociably, around in our jump seats. 39。m afraid I know very little about the young man,39。 the Matron of Honor said, rather explosively. 39。And you know Muriel. She39。 I asked the Matron of Honor.39。 She stared at me. 39。Well, lucky you!39。 。We were boys together,39。 the Matron of Honor said irritably. 39。 she said. 39。clock in the morning, last night. Then at that insane hour he calls Muriel on the phone from way out in Long Island or someplace and asks her to meet him in the lobby of some horrible hotel so they can talk.39。Nobody39。 39。d have said to them. I probably would have just blabbered something idiotic. But my gosh. Honestly! I just can39。Well, I would have!39。s chuckle sounded again. 39。ll last longer.39。I mean it,39。s cap a visored hat with the metal frame removed from inside the crown, which usually conferred on the wearer a certain, presumably desired, intrepid look. In his case, however, the cap didn39。I39。 she then asked, delicately getting down to brass tacks. 39。 Mrs Silsburn asked. Abruptly, conversationally. I had a brief coughing spell at that particular instant. When it was over, I turned to her with all available alacrity and said I39。t get a chance to ask you inside. How39。 The one who had never been so hot in her entire life was, as I39。immediate fancily39。s 39。Have you ever seen Judge Ranker? He has the face of a saint.39。clock. I closed my eyes and waited, a trifle guardedly, for the anist to quit the incidental music and plunge into 39。 she said, 39。s going to be perfectly all right, but I hate 1942. I think I39。s at three o39。t know anything about the romance itself at all, except that they apparently met when Seymour was stationed at Monmouth last winter. The mother is the end a finger in all the arts, and sees a good Jungian man twice a week (she asked me twice, the night I met her, if I39。m in a terrible rush to pack, so this will be short but perating. Admiral Behindpincher has decided that lie must fly to parts unknown for the war effort and has also decided to take his secretary with him if I behave myself. I39。ll only pass along that our bined ine on 39。 It39。 camp in Maryland, and Walt was somewhere in the Pacific or on his way there with a fieldartillery unit. (We39。 When the horse arrived, it turned out indeed to be a superlative animal. I39。 lie said, 39。It is now in Shac