“Umm,” said Slim.

George looked over at Slim and saw the calm, Godlike eyes fastened on him. “Funny,” said George. “I used to have a hell of a lot of fun with ‘im. Used to play jokes on ‘im ‘cause he was too dumb to take care of ‘imself. But he was too dumb even to know he had a joke played on him. I had fun. Made me seem God damn smart alongside of him. Why he’d do any damn thing I tol’ him. If I tol’ him to walk over a cliff, over he’d go. That wasn’t so damn much fun after a while. He never got mad about it, neither. I’ve beat the hell outa him, and he coulda bust every bone in my body jus’ with his han’s, but he never lifted a finger against me.” George’s voice was taking on the tone of confession. “Tell you what made me stop that. One day a bunch of guys was standin’ around up on the Sacramento River. I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, ‘Jump in.’ An’ he jumps. Couldn’t swim a stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get him. An’ he was so damn nice to me for pullin’ him out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in. Well, I ain’t done nothing like that no more.”

“He’s a nice fella,” said Slim. “Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.”

George stacked the scattered cards and began to lay out his solitaire hand. The shoes thudded on the ground outside. At the windows the light of the evening still made the window squares bright.

“I ain’t got no people,” George said. “I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin’ to fight all the time.”

“Yeah, they get mean,” Slim agreed. “They get so they don’t want to talk to nobody.”

“’Course Lennie’s a God damn nuisance most of the time,” said George. “But you get used to goin’ around with a guy an’ you can’t get rid of him.”

“He ain’t mean,” said Slim. “I can see Lennie ain’t a bit mean.”

“’Course he ain’t mean. But he gets in trouble alla time because he’s so God damn dumb. Like what happened in Weed—” He stopped, stopped in the middle of turning over a card. He looked alarmed and peered over at Slim. “You wouldn’t tell nobody?”

“What’d he do in Weed?” Slim asked calmly.

“You wouldn’ tell?.... No, ‘course you wouldn’.”

“What’d he do in Weed?” Slim asked again.

“Well, he seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do. Well, this girl squawks and squawks. I was jus’ a little bit off, and I heard all the yellin’, so I comes running, an’ by that time Lennie’s so scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on. I socked him over the head with a fence picket to make him let go. He was so scairt he couldn’t let go of that dress. And he’s so God damn strong, you know.”

Slim’s eyes were level and unwinking. He nodded very slowly. “So what happens?”

George carefully built his line of solitaire cards. “Well, that girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in a irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day. Got on’y our heads sticking outa water, an’ up under the grass that sticks out from the side of the ditch. An’ that night we scrammed outa there.”

Slim sat in silence for a moment. “Didn’t hurt the girl none, huh?” he asked finally.

“Hell, no. He just scared her. I’d be scared too if he grabbed me. But he never hurt her. He jus’ wanted to touch that red dress, like he wants to pet them pups all the time.”

“He ain’t mean,” said Slim. “I can tell a mean guy a mile off.”

“’Course he ain’t, and he’ll do any damn thing I—”

Lennie came in through the door. He wore his blue denim coat over his shoulders like a cape, and he walked hunched way over.

“Hi, Lennie,” said George. “How you like the pup now?”

Lennie said breathlessly, “He’s brown an’ white jus’ like I wanted.” He went directly to his bunk and lay down and turned his face to the wall and drew up his knees.

George put down his cards very deliberately. “Lennie,” he said sharply.

Lennie twisted his neck and looked over his shoulder. “Huh? What you want, George?”

“I tol’ you you couldn’t bring that pup in here.”

“What pup, George? I ain’t got no pup.”

George went quickly to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and rolled him over. He reached down and picked the tiny puppy from where Lennie had been concealing it against his stomach.

Lennie sat up quickly. “Give ‘um to me, George.”

George said, “You get right up an’ take this pup back to the nest. He’s gotta sleep with his mother. You want to kill him? Just born last night an’ you take him out of the nest. You take him back or I’ll tell Slim not to let you have him.”