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'Sorrow is with Grandpa Bob,' said Egg, who was right about that, of course, and I knew there would be no cajoling the whereabouts of the stuffed terror out of Egg.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve,' I said.

'Who?' Egg said.

'New Year's Eve!' I said. 'We're having a party.'

'Where?' he asked.

'Here,' I said. 'In the Hotel New Hampshire.'

'What room?' he said.

'The main room,' I said. The big room. The restaurant, dummy,'

'We're not having a party in this room,' Egg said.

With Egg's costumes all around, there was hardly room for a party in our room, I knew, but I let this observation pass. I was almost asleep when Egg spoke again.

'How would you dry something that's wet?' Egg asked.

And I thought to myself of the likely condition of Sorrow, after God knows how many hours in the open trash barrel, in the rain and snow.

'What is it that's wet, Egg?' I asked.

'Hair,' he said. 'How would you dry hair?'

'Your hair, Egg?'

'Anybody's hair,' Egg said. 'Lots of hair. More hair than mine.'

'Well, with a hair dryer, I suppose,' I said.

'That thing Franny has?' Egg asked.

'Mother has one, too,' I told him.

'Yeah,' he said, 'but Franny's is bigger. I think it's hotter, too.'

'Got a lot of hair to dry, huh?' I said.

'What?' Egg said. But it wasn't worth repeating; an aspect of Egg's deafness was Egg's ability to choose when not to hear.

In the morning I watched him take off his pajamas, under which he wore -- and had slept in -- a full suit of clothes.

'It's good to be ready -- right, Egg?' I asked.

'Ready for what?' he asked. There isn't any school today -- it's still vacation.'

'Then why'd you wear your clothes to bed?' I asked him, but he let that pass; he was rummaging through various piles of costumes. 'What are you looking for?' I asked him. 'You're already dressed.' But whenever Egg detected that the tone I took toward him was a teasing one, he ignored me.

'See you at the party,' he said.

Egg loved the Hotel New Hampshire; perhaps he loved it even more than Father, because Father loved most of all the idea of it; in fact, Father seemed daily more and more unsure of the actual success of his venture. Egg loved all the rooms, the stairwells, the great unoccupied emptiness of the former all-girls' school. Father knew we were unoccupied a little too much of the time, but that was fine with Egg.

Guests would occasionally bring odd things they had found in their rooms to breakfast. The room was very clean,' they would begin, 'but someone must have left this . . . this something.' The right rubber arm of a cowboy; the wrinkled, webbed foot of a dried toad. A playing card, with a face drawn over the face of the jack of diamonds; the five of clubs with the word 'Yuck' written across it. A small sock with six marbles in it. A costume change (Egg's policeman's badge pinned to his baseball uniform) hanging in the closet of 4G.

On the day of New Year's Eve, the weather was that thawing kind -- a mist spreading over Elliot Park, and yesterday's snow already melting and revealing the grey snow of a week ago. 'Where were you this morning, John-O?' Ronda Ray asked me, as we were fussing with the restaurant for the New Year's Eve party.