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says, ‘Father, the Lord has seen fit to make you the instrument of a miracle. You have just been delivered of a fine baby boy.’ The priest is overjoyed—what evidence of A Divine Hand! what an honor! and all that . . .”
    â€œLook, Talbot, I gotta shove off.”
    â€œAll right, all right, I’ll wind it up. The kid is raised as a miracle child. Members of the parish contribute to his education, he goes to the finest schools, and so on and so on. When he’s in college, he gets word that his father, the priest, is dying. He rushes home to his bedside. Kid says, ‘You’ve been so goodto me, Dad, how can I repay you?’ Priest says, ‘By forgiving me for a terrible deception. All these years I told you I was your father. But it’s not true’—and he tells him the whole story. ‘So you see, my son, I’m not your father at all. I’m your mother.
The Archbishop is your father
.
’”
Talbot laughed. “Get it?”
    â€œYeah,” said Garth, smiling weakly, “pretty funny.”
    â€œIt’s more than funny. There’s truth there. They’re dirty, all of them. Believe me. And if you want more proof—”
    â€œI’m going.”
    â€œSure. But take this magazine with you.”
    â€œI got it at home, I think. Got a subscription.”
    â€œThat’s all right. Take this copy. I’ve marked off a paragraph on page 34. Pretty sexy stuff. And pretty surprising—considering who the author is.”
    Garth rolled up the fat issue of the popular magazine and put it under his arm. “So long, Talbot. See you around. Maybe you’ll be here tomorrow?”
    â€œNo, I’ll be working tomorrow.”
    â€œOn Sunday?”
    â€œWhy not on Sunday? If I have a sabbath, it’s today.”
    â€œSaturday? You’re not a Jew, Talbot, are you?”
    Talbot wrinkled his nose. “You know better than that. No, I like Saturday because it’s named for Saturn, a Roman god. He ate his own children, all but three of them. How do you like that! In ancient Rome they used to hold festivals in his honor, big orgies. Saturnalia, they called them. ‘The children of Saturn shall be great jugglers and chiders, and they will never forgive till they be revenged of their quarrel.’ I like the sound of that. No, I make a point of working on Sundays.”
    â€œWell then, maybe you’ll be around here later on today, this evening?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œI like talking to you.”
    â€œI like talking to you, Garth.”
    Garth left the eating-place, the coffee sour in his stomach, his spirit equally sour with worry and fear and doubt. Talbot was a good talker; he seemed to have an answer for everything. Garth could not accept much of what Talbot said, and yet . . . wherethere’s smoke, there’s fire. Perhaps, just as Talbot insisted, it had been a bad idea to bring Susie to the Fathers for her trouble. The Church was old-fashioned, full of antiquated notions. Maybe one of those psychiatrists would have been better. More modern. More scientific.
    But what good would it do Susie to spill her guts to a psychiatrist? Why not let her forget the bad things? Why bring them up again? Why talk about them?
    Still, there was no assurance Father Sargent wouldn’t make her talk about them. And that she must not do.
    She would probably be sitting at home now, perhaps doing her homework, watching television, reading. She was a great one for reading. Smart as a whip, and only sixteen.
The old sugar daddies with their sixteen-year-old girls
 . . . Garth’s hands clenched. The thought disturbed him deeply.
    Wordless images crowded his mind: bald old men from whom the thrust of youth had fled, men who needed the dewy skin, the heart-melting innocence of extreme youth to kindle the fire in them again. Bug-eyed and gape-mouthed over the smooth bodies of young girls, the