'Considering the multitude of things that happen in any one person's life, it seems fairly unlikely that those little boys remembered the incident for very long. It was an introduction to what was to come. And cruelty could never again take them totally by surprise. But I have remembered it. I have remembered it because it was the moment I learned that I was not to be trusted.'
William Maxwell, 'With Reference to an Incident at a Bridge' in Billie Dyer and Other Stories, p.68.
