“No. He was a white man, except he was awful sunburned and kind of shabby dressed—no necktie and hat. Say, he said some funny things to me. He said I had the best digestion he ever saw, and he said if the straps of my dress was to break Id devastate the country. He said he was a liar by profession, and he made good money at it, enough to own a Ford as soon as he got it paid out. I think he was crazy. Not dangerous: just crazy.”
The niece lay quiet. She said, contemplatively: “You do look like they feed you on bread and milk and put you to bed at sunset every day. . . . What was his name? Did he tell you?” she asked suddenly.
“Yes. It was...” Jenny pondered a while. “I remembered it because he was such a funny kind of man. It was . . . Walker or Foster or something.”
“Walker or Foster? Well, which one was it?”
“It must be Foster because I remembered it by it began with a F like my girl friend’s middle name—Frances. Thelma Frances, only she don’t use both of them. Only I don’t think it was Foster, because—”
“You don’t remember it, then.”
“Yes, I do. Wait. . . . Oh, yes: I remember—Faulkner, that was it.”
“Faulkner?” the niece pondered in turn. “Never heard of him,” she said at last, with finality. “And he was the one that told you that thing?”
“No. It was after that, when we had come back to N.O. That crazy man was on the boat coming back. He got to talking to Pete and Roy while me and Thelma was fixing up downstairs, and he danced with Thelma. He wouldn’t dance with me because he said he didn’t dance very well, and so he had to keep his mind on the music while he danced. He said he could dance with either Roy or Thelma or Pete, but he
