Don't step on that wheel.
I think it is going to start to swing again.
"Working on the problem of the bridge," he said civilly.
"How is it?" asked Pablo.
"Very good," Robert Jordan said.
"All very good."
"I have been working on the problem of the retreat," Pablo said and Robert Jordan looked at his drunken pig eyes and at the wine bowl.
The wine bowl was nearly empty.
Keep off the wheel, he told himself.
He is drinking again.
Sure.
But don't you get on that wheel now.
Wasn't Grant supposed to be drunk a good part of the time during the Civil War?
Certainly he was.
I'll bet Grant would be furious at the comparison if he could see Pablo.
Grant was a cigar smoker, too.
Well, he would have to see about getting Pablo a cigar.
That was what that face really needed to complete it; a half chewed cigar.
Where could he get Pablo a cigar?
"How does it go?" Robert Jordan asked politely.
"Very well," Pablo said and nodded his head heavily and judiciously. "_Muy bien_."
"You've thought up something?" Agustin asked from where they were playing cards.
"Yes," Pablo said.
"Various things."
"Where did you find them?
In that bowl?" Agustin demanded.
"Perhaps," Pablo said.
"Who knows?
Maria, fill the bowl, will you, please?"
"In the wineskin itself there should be some fine ideas," Agustin turned back to the card game.
"Why don't you crawl in and look for them inside the skin?"
"Nay," said Pablo equably. "I search for them in the bowl."
He is not getting on the wheel either, Robert Jordan thought.
It must be revolving by itself.
I suppose you cannot ride that wheel too long.
That is probably quite a deadly wheel.
I'm glad we are off of it.
It was making me dizzy there a couple of times.
But it is the thing that drunkards and those who are truly mean or cruel ride until they die.
It goes around and up and the swing is never quite the same and then it comes around down.
Let it swing, he thought.
They will not get me onto it again.
No sir, General Grant, I am off that wheel.
Pilar was sitting by the fire, her chair turned so that she could see over the shoulders of the two card players who had their backs to her.
She was watching the game.
Here it is the shift from deadliness to normal family life that is the strangest, Robert Jordan thought.
It is when the damned wheel comes down that it gets you.
But I am off that wheel, he thought.
And nobody is going to get me onto it again.
Two days ago I never knew that Pilar, Pablo nor the rest existed, he thought.