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“All right, then But there is one question I been dying to ask: What in hell are you doing back in Eudora?”

“Nothing ot a little business to tend to”

“Lawyer business?”

“Just a simple job for the Justice Department I have to interview a feyers in the county, that’s all it is In the meantime—it’s catfish!” I said

Pretty soon Miss Fanny ca plates of crispy fried fish, sizzling-hot hush puppies, and ice-cold sweet-pickle coleslaw The first bite was delicious, and every bite after I asked Miss Fanny what time the place opened for breakfast, and h another of Maybelle’s breakfasts

“Hell, I look old, but you still look like a high-school boy, Ben,” said Jacob “Like you could run ten miles and never even break a sweat”

“Oh, I did plenty of sweating just riding that bike a dozen blocks,” I said “It’ll take ain How you been keeping yourself, Jacob?”

“Well, let me see… you probably heard I turned down the offer to be aht after I passed on the chance to be president of the university up in Tuscaloosa Well, sir, it was shortly after that I made up my mind that the profession I was most suited for was as a carpenter’s assistant”

“That’s good,” I said “Honest work”

“Yeah, me and Wylie Davis are the men you want to see if you need a new frame for yourscreens, you know, or a new roof for your johnny house”

Then there was silence, a good and acceptable kind of silence—nothing nervous or uncomfortable about it The kind of quiet that is tolerable only between old friends

It was Jacob who finally broke it

“They were good days, Ben Weren’t they?”

“They were great days”

“We were friends! Right through it all”