Summary

Trellis’s character Furriskey began his life after having been born an adult man, and worried about the fact he had never seen his own face. The student informs the reader that several pages of his manuscript have been lost and, because he never reads back over anything he has written, he cannot remember what happened next.

The student goes to meet Brinsley in a billiard hall. He summarizes a section of the novel in which Furriskey is informed by a supernatural being that he has been created as a character who will chiefly drink alcohol and assault women. Furriskey goes into the hallway of the hotel and tries a door, where he finds two other characters: Shanahan and Lamont.

The men introduce themselves and make conversation. Shanahan tells the story of being summoned as a character in a Western written by an author...