The milk truck finally dived into the stream of traffic and the bus moved into position. I let my eyes close and my head sink back again, euphoria tingling with a taste of confidence. “How about it, fellas?” I inquired of those standing in the nearby shadows. “Does Little Leland have any sort of chance against this illiterate spook who has charged out of the past to once more goad me with his grin? Do I actually have a chance to wrest from him the life that I have been cheated out of, the life that we both knew was mine? Rightfully mine? Justly mine?” Before any of my friends present can answer, the ghost himself slips out of the melting shadows and raps me over the head with a bladder, knocking loose a hailstorm of silver barbiturate burrs. Still drunk with confidence, I half rose from my seat to demand of the grinning giant looming above me in a sweat shirt, number 88, “Whither wilt thou lead me?” fixing him with the most withering Shakespearean gaze my goof-balled eyes could muster. “Speak, I’ll go no further.” “Oh?” A sneer played at his lip. “You’ll go no further, is it? The hell if you won’t! Now you get your tail on over here an’ sit it down; didn’t you hear me callin’ you?” “You’ve no hold on me”—in a quavering voice—“no hold at all.” “Why, willya listen at this: he says I ain’t got no hold on him. Boys, you hear that: I got no hold on smart-ass here. Bub, you look: I aim t’ ast you purty-please just one more time, then lose my patience. So move, blast you! An’ quit that fidgetin’ around! Stan’ still! Move, I tell ye!” Our young hero, cowed and bullied and in a furor of frustration, plops to the ground quivering with protoplasmic confusion. The giant prods the glob with the toe of his spiked logging boot. “Gaa. Look what a mess he went an’ made. Well, jeez . . . boys!” He raises his head and calls, “Dip him up an’ get him on in the house fertheshitsakes so’s we can get on with this business. Jeez, look at him...” A horde of kinsmen rush forth from the wings; their plaid shirts, spike boots, and manly physiques bespeak the logging trade; a uniformity of features indicates they are all members of the same family, for they all boast noble Roman noses, sandy-brown hair wafted free by the fragrant northern breezes, and iron-green eyes. They are ruggedly handsome. All save the Smallest Fellow, whose face has been horribly mutilated by constant use as the family dartboard; the darts are barbed and the flesh hangs in shreds where the barbs have torn it. This poor wretch trips in his haste and falls in a heap. The giant leans down and picks him up between a great thumb and forefinger and regards him with the kindly scorn one might reserve for a cricket. “Joe Ben,” the giant says patiently, “ain’t I tole you ’bout thisyere fumble-fart-an’-fallin’ down all the time? Don’t you know that it’s call to get you drummed right out o’ the clan if you keep on? What’d folks think, a Stamper ploppin’ on his butt all the time? Now hop it up an’ get on over yonder an’ help your cousins sop my kid brother up before he drains away down the gopher holes. Now git!” He places the Smallest Fellow on the ground and fondly watches him scuttle to the sopping. “Good ol’ Joby.” Hank smiles after the lovable little gnome in a manner to betray the tender heart that beats beneath his rough exterior. “I’m might glad old Henry didn’t have him drownt like he did the rest of the runts; Joe’s good fer a lotta laughs.” By this time the kinsmen have managed to contain our melted hero and are bearing him toward the house in a polyethylene bag; during the passage across the spacious and tastefully landscaped front bog the plucky lad overcomes his fright enough to gradually pull himself back to some semblance of human form. The house is disguised as a pile of discarded scrap lumber stacked precariously into the clouds; the door, which can be opened only by the insertion of a log in an enormous keyhole, swings inward, and for an instant young Leland can make out through his transparent confines the dim trappings of a spacious hall—mastiffs stalking among great fir-tree pillars wherein double-edged axes are stuck, sheepskin mackinaws hanging carelessly on their handles—then the door swings shut with a booming echo that reverberates off distant walls, and all is dark once again. This is mighty Stamper Hall. It was built sometime during the reign of Henry (Stamper) the Eighth and for centuries has been condemned by every public-safety agency in the land. Water can be heard dripping even in the severest drought, and the long maze of decaying corridors is filled with constant dark scurryings and a continual drumming of blind frogs. At intervals these sounds are broken by the thundering collapse of an obscure wing of the house, and entire branches of the family have disappeared into its passageways never to be heard from again. The domain is an absolute monarchy in which no one dares make a move, not even the crown prince himself, without first consulting the Great Ruler. Hank steps to the head of the band of kinsmen and cups his hands about his mouth to summon this exalted potentate. “Oh...PAW!” The roar rolls rumbling through the inky blackness, crashing into wooden walls. He yells a............