When I returned, Soane, from his sofa, said something that I did not catch—something about Callan and his article.
"Oh, for God's sake," I answered, "don't worry me. Have some more coffee and stick to Cal's line of argument. That's what Fox said. I'm not responsible."
"Deuced queer," Soane muttered. He began to scribble with a pencil. From the tone of his voice I knew that he had reached the precise stage at which something brilliant—the real thing of its kind—might be expected.
Very late Soane finished his leader. He looked up as he wrote the last word.
"I've got it written," he said. "But . . . I say, what the deuce is up? It's like being a tall clock with the mainspring breaking, this."
I rang the bell for someone to take the copy down.
"Your metaphor's too much for me, Soane," I said.
"It's appropriate all the way along," he maintained, "if you call me a mainspring. I've been wound up and wound up to write old de Mersch and his Greenland up—and it's been a tight
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