Lovely piece on Berigan, but no, alas, Guest.999. The reference to "Berigan" in the full-length printed novel is only relevant in that it co-exists with the hero singing along with his record of "Just Plain Folks" with great emotion.

So far, nobody seems to have anything more than the first two stanzas, but the narrative as it stands still sounds incomplete to me. We deserve to know whether the son repented there and then in front of his rich friends OR whether he lost all his money and with it his friends, and his parents nursed him to health and wealth again. In either case the chorus would hve t be carefully modified to fit (cf "I don't want to play in your yeard" third stanza leading to chorus very cleverly)... Does anyone agree?

Sanjay Sircar