want to dance to-night?’ and then she’ll say, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Suppose we just drive around a while? . . .’ Will she say that at this point? Well, should she not. . . Lets see, what would she say?”
Mr. Talliaferro strode on, musing swiftly. Well, anyway, if she says that, if she does say that, then I'll say ‘No, let’s dance.’ Yes, yes, something like that. Though perhaps I’d better kiss her again, not so coldly, perhaps? . . . But should she say something else. . . But then, I shall be prepared for any contingency, eh? Half the battle. . . . Yes, something like that, delicately but firmly done, so as not to alarm the quarry. Some walls are carried by storm, but all walls are reduced by siege. There is also the fable of the wind and the sun and the man in a cloak. “We’ll change the gender, by Jove,” Mr. Talliaferro said aloud, breaking suddenly from his revery to discover that he had passed Fairchild’s door. He retraced his steps and craned his neck to see the dark window.
“Fairchild!”
No reply.
“Oh, Fairchild!”
The two dark windows were inscrutable as two fates. He pressed the bell, then stepped back to complete his aria. Beside the door was another entrance. Light streamed across a half length lattice blind like a saloon door; beyond it a typewriter was being thumped viciously. Mr. Talliaferro knocked diffidently upon the blind.
“Hello,” a voice boomed above the clattering machine, though the machine itself did not falter. Mr. Talliaferro pondered briefly, then he knocked again.
“Come in, damn you.” The voice drowned the typewriter temporarily. “Come in: do you think this is a bathroom?” Mr. Talliaferro opened the blind and the huge collarless man
