abuse. I want facts."

"Brian said it all last night," reminded Garry. "It's just another
case of a last straw."

"You honestly mean that the ancestors of the straw are the sunsets, the
disorder here--the--the--" He thumped the table. "Garry, I don't
lie. I swear I don't. I hate a liar. I mean a dishonorable liar. A
lie is an untruth that harms. That's my definition. Any man
embroiders sordid fact on occasion."

"On occasion!" admitted Garry.

Kenny, with his eye upon the fern in the window, missed the
significance. It had registered his sincere regret--that fern--at the
need of pawning Brian's fishing rods and golf clubs. Like Brian! He
had failed utterly to comprehend the delicacy of the tribute.

Finding this point upon which he dwelt with some length equally
over-nice for Garry's perception, Kenny in a huff sent him home,
watered the fern, without in the least understanding the impulse, and
went to bed. And dreaming as usual, he seemed to be hunting cobwebs
with a gun made of ferns. He found them draped over huge pillars of
ice, marked in Brian's familiar sunset colors. Truth. And when
panting and sweating he had swept them all away with a wedge of cheese
he seemed to hear Whitaker's voice--calling him a failure.

Kenny felt that he had been visited by Far Darrig, the Gaelic bringer
of bad dreams.