It was raining as I got off the train in Nashville, Tennessee -- a slow, gray rain. I was tired so I went straight to my hotel. A big, heavy man was walking up and down in the hotel lobby. Something about the way he moved made me think of a hungry dog looking for a bone. He had a big, fat, red face and a sleepy expression in his eyes. He introduced himself as Wentworth Caswell -- Major Wentworth Caswell -- from "a fine southern family." Caswell pulled me into the hotel's barroom and yelled for a waiter. We ordered drinks. While we drank, he talked continually about himself, his family, his wife and her family. He said his wife was rich. He showed me a handful of silver coins that he pulled from his coat pocket. By this time, I had decided that I wanted no more of him. I said good night. I went up to my room and looked out the window. It was ten o'clock but the town was silent. "A nice quiet place," I said to myself as I got ready for bed. Just an ordinary, sleepy southern town." I was born in the south myself. But I live in New York now. I write for a large magazine. My boss had asked me to go to Nashville. The magazine had received some stories and poems from a writer in Nashville, named Azalea Adair. The editor liked her work very much. The publisher asked me to get her to sign an agreement to write only for his magazine.