Over in the corner, he turned in his sleep and pulled the buffalo robe tighter around him. Dreaming of sugarplums? no -- he dreamt on of his youth, of working in the sewers of Paris so that he could afford to live on the Left Bank while sneaking into classes at the Sorbonne, of his life in the trenches during The Great War, when the gas and shell and Maxim guns tearing the heart out of a generation precluded him from developing friendships because they would be torn asunder by the implacable enemy; of his service with La Legion Etranger and the miles of hiking through the deserts of North Africa where Berbers lurked behind every dune with their jezails primed; and of that sweet young girl he left behind when he first went to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune, the innocent young thing who he had promised to return to and who ended up marrying Clem Bob Simms, the President of the local university instead.

In his sleep he reached again for the bottle of absinthe.