Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary

Max Roby is sitting in Bea Majeski's tavern when Horace Weymouth, the local scribe, walks in. Horace doesn't really want to talk to Max but an innate sense of courtesy compels him to go across the bar to sit with him. Max works all sorts of not-subtle games to cadge beers and cigarettes out of both Horace and Bea. Max, true to character, is insulting and gross in personal habit, making grim jokes about the fibroid cyst on Horace's forehead and returning from the john with "evidence of hasty urination" staining the front of his pants. The only reason Bea tolerates Max is because she is deeply fond of Miles, her son in law, and thinks her daughter, Janine, is stupid to throw him over for the likes of Walt Comeau, the Silver Fox. She describes Miles as the sort of...