"A tremendous novel."--Chicago Sun-Times

Hours before the nightbell had commenced its furious buzzing he had been awake, neither mildly awake nor half asleep, but wide-eyed and alert, his mind crammed with the photographic clarity of insomnia. It was an unbearably hot night, hot as only a square of attached slum houses can get, the heat stewing and intensifying in the crib of ramshackle backyards on which his bedroom window looked out. The oversized window fan (he had installed it himself) was no help either. In the early morning stillness it clattered like a jackhammer.

The buzzing had caused him to start, jerking him to a sitting position in the old double bed and triggering an arthritic spark in his lower spine. The luminous face of the dresser clock read three-thirty and he cursed softly and considerately, although he was the only one in the house.

"Aaah, the bastard. The bastards won't let you live."

Sighing, he plopped back on the moist pillow, hoping that the bell-ringer would grow discouraged and return to his tenement warren. Normally it was his wife's function to trudge to the front window and advise the caller The doctor is not in, he has gone for the evening. It was a small lie, and few of them ever believed it, but it worked most of the time. But his wife was at the beach for the summer; if the visitor persisted he would have no choice but to undertake the distasteful journey himself. He was too old and too tired for night work. Why couldn't they get that into their thick skulls?

"My dear lousy patients," he said half aloud. "Why don't they bother some young shtunk of a specialist? Why always me at three-thirty?"

By now he realized that the waiting game would not deter the nocturnal intruder. The buzzing continued, in long agonized peals, in brief bzzt-bzzt-bzzts, and occasionally, to his horror, in the unmistakable beats of "shave and a haircut, two bits."

The impudence brought him up sharply again, and he probed for his slippers at the bedside, swearing steadily and quietly, and, somewhat irrelevantly, framing a theory of nightbell ringers. The shorter and politer the buzz, the greater chance it was a "regular," someone he had known for years, on a genuinely urgent mission. When they buzzed wildly they were usually transients, people whose own physicians (probably fancy internists and pediatricians) refused night calls, and in a last desperate attempt tried his bell simply because he had been around for forty years. The worst of all were the uncontrollables, the addicts, alcoholics, and loonies, like the one now camped on his stoop.

Padding across the cramped hallway, through the narrow living-dining room, he decided, again without too much pertinence, that it was the fault of the specialists. "The lousy professors should drop dead," he muttered, "let them go out at night."

Again, he heard the dum-di-de-dum dum, dum-dum. Why, the rat was enjoying a Halloween prank! A neighbor's dog unloosed a resonant protest, and across the street, somewhere in the cage of Negro tenements, a window slammed open. He held the undone pajama string in one hand (finding time to denounce the thieving manufacturers who put out such defective merchandise) and peered through the copper screen. It was an old-fashioned screen, heavily framed in wood and bolted securely on all four sides. Even with his head pressed against it, he could not see the top step; the caller's identity was hidden from him. Below, Haven Place lay peaceful under its normal patina of filth. The skeleton of a ruined sofa, set afire that afternoon by little children, lay bathed in Consolidated Edison lamplight in front of his car. The awareness that it would remain there until he supplied a liberal tip to the street cleaners distressed him briefly.

"Who's there?" he called down. "What the hell is all that ringing about? Haven't you people any consideration?"

Abruptly, the buzzing stopped. From below, the unseen ringer called back.

"You de doctor?"

"That's none of your business. Get out of here."

"You de doctor?"

"You'll find out who I am, you little shtunk! I'll come down with a baseball bat and you'll know who I am! Get away from here before I call the police."

Then he saw the visitor for the first time. At the mention of police, he had leaped from the top step and now stood framed in the brick portal at the base of the stoop. Under the streetlight the doctor saw him clearly: a lithe, brown youth in T-shirt and billowing yellow pants tapering at the ankle. A ridiculous checked cap covered his finely molded head; beneath its tiny brim the prognathous jaw jutted upward, the dazzling teeth arrayed in a magnificent grin.

"You ain't no doctor. You know what you is? You is sheeee-eee-eeet!"

The boy cackled happily at the obscene challenge, and from a sleek fat automobile, bright with chrome and gadgetry -- it was parked just in back of the doctor's weary black Buick -- there emanated an accompaniment of rich laughter. The visitor had come with a party.

"Tell him again, Josh!"

"Yeah, Josh, you tell him!"

"C'mon, man, don't waste no time with dat old man! Das all he is ... sheeee-eee-eeeet!"

The youth they called Josh did a joyous little dance to the car, and opened the front door. "You better look on yo' stoop, old doctor! You been left somethin'!"

"Why, you scum! You bunch of galoots! Is that all you bums are good for?" the doctor cried out angrily. "Is that all you're good for, even with the relief checks? Waking up an old man like me! Your parents should be ashamed of themselves!"

In trying to elicit their sympathy, he sensed a fleeting annoyance with himself. Ten years ago he would have grabbed Myron's baseball bat and plunged into the street, taking his chances. But he was sixty-eight years old now, and it seemed that every year the galoots got bigger and stronger and fiercer. He could think only of his friend Sol Pomerantz the druggist. Solly had fought back, and Solly had died in the emergency room of St. Mary's with three bullets in his chest.

The motor of the fat car hummed, and the driver swung it out arrogantly past his own automobile, racing the engine. Josh poked his head from the window.

"Lissen, you doctor, I ain't foolin' you! You better look on yo' steps! It's a 'mergency!"

A gleeful chorus followed: "Yeah, a 'mergency! 'Mergency! 'Mergency!"

The car sped away, charging through the stoplight at the corner. Once more the street was silent, save for the wailing of a few dogs. The doctor's anger was complete; worst of all, there was no outlet for his outrage. His wife was a good listener, but she was away. His nephew Myron, who lived with him, was not yet home from work. To phone the police and report the incident would only heighten frustration: the cops would smile at him indolently and dismiss the whole business as boyish fun. It occurred to him then that he had better inspect the front stoop. Who knew what those hoodlums would do? In the darkened hallway, he found a faded flannel bathrobe in the closet, pulled it over his shoulders, and started down the canted stairs to the vestibule, flicking on the street lights. There were double locks on both the hall door and the street door, and by the time he had undone them he heard voices outside. It was the apprehensive hum of the slum crowd, assembling for an evening's entertainment.