When we reached the bargain basement itself, Namo passed into a trance--like state, staring at the islands of gods-at-slashed-prices, shouldering his way roughly through the crowd of rabid shoppers, and stopping now and then to pick up an item for closer examination, or to give it a trial squeeze. I followed Namo, partly because he seemed to be onto something, and partly because he was unstoppable. The apotheosis of the rational consumer, he weighed and considered, clutched tightly then stepped back, fondled and dismissed. I began to get the sense that nothing would please him.

"Namo," I cried, as he rejected a sweater of pure Scottish wool for $6.98, "you're crazy. You can never do as well as you hope to. You've got to settle. You've got to take what's here."

I had said the wrong thing. He glared at me and said abruptly. "You're crazy. I never settle." It was hard to argue with such logic.

Namo started to force his way toward a distant department that he had not yet checked out, and to get there he decided to take a short-cut through ladies' lingerie. I sensed trouble, but it was no use. He struck out as though he were a bulldozer blazing a trail in the woods, knocking over women with his wide shoulders.

I saw the accident coming before it happened. Namo turned blindly down an aisle where a woman was trying on a Jane Russell Special brassiere. She was smack in the middle of the act when Namo smacked her, but she countered with a quick left job to his lower ribs. The blow wasn't enough to stop him or knock him off his feet, but it certainly slowed him down. Then she started to shriek something about being molested and Namo started thrashing angrily through the; crowd, knocking over displays and beheading scores of mannequins poised ever so carefully along the aisles.

About this time, the police got back into the act, only now with more success. It took two balding plainsclothesmen in leisure suits and two uniformed officers to wrestle Namo to the floor, where they handcuffed him, read him his rights, and led him out the door. I had been too stunned to act, and now without Namo I found myself at a loss for direction.

I started buying things-ridiculous things. I got a Zippo lighter with scenes from the Mardi Gras painted on both sides. I got $1.50 athletic shirts that had been made up for teams that never claimed them, and bore obscure and worthless insignia. I got jackets in styles that were so passe they were almost chic again. And on my way out I got that pure-wool sweater for $6.98, in quiet tribute to a dream deferred.

And, ultimately, I did get home to New York for Christmas eve, arriving barely half an hour before midnight. Family and friends judged from the gifts I had brought home that I had become an utter wastrel, but on Christmas morning I remembered a more severe case than myself, and phoned Boston to find out where Namo was, and what I could do for him. And so, when Namo awakened on Christmas Day in the Charles Street Jail, it was a candygram from me that first greeted him.

And I hoped that Namo, if he knew where he was, would appreciate the irony. But then he was never much for subtlety.