“It’s the other way, Mr. Monsen.” She had a somewhat breathless voice. “What can I do for you? I was sent here by Rusty’s Secretarial Bureau.”
It is well known that we seldom take out our annoyances upon the objects that inspire them; Emmet repeated the words: “Secretarial Bureau!” in a tone which made the place into a day nursery for gun molls, an immediate field of investigation for Messrs. Dewey and Hoover.
“I’m Miss Trainor and I’m answering the call you made this morning. I have a reference from Mr. Rachoff, the musician. I worked for him till he went to Europe last week—”
She held a letter toward him—but Emmet was still in a mood.
“Never heard of him,” he announced pontifically, then corrected himself, “Yes, I have. But I never believe in references. Anybody can fake references.”
He looked at her closely, even accusingly, but her smile had come back—and seemed to agree with him that all references were nonsense and she’d thought so for years—only she was glad to hear it said at last.
It seemed quite a while to have been in the pantry; Emmet got up.
“That downstairs room will be your typing office. Margerilla will show you.”
He nodded and returned to the living room, where he was increasingly conscious that the doctor was waiting.
But not alone. He was in grave and secret conference with the figure in white who had brushed by Emmet in the pantry. So intense was their confluence that Emmet did not interrupt it—it flowed on in a sort of sustained mumble for some time after Emmet settled in his chair.
“Sorry I was so long. People kept coming in. They told me it would be quiet out here—this Davis even had guards and all to keep his admirers away.”
“This is Miss Hapgood, your day nurse,” said Dr. Cardiff.
An unconfident bell-shaped lady smiled and then appraised Emmet with the expression of a fur-trader looking at a marten pelt.
“I’ve told her everything—” continued the doctor.
The nurse confirmed this by holding up a pad covered with writing.
“—and I’ve asked her to call me several times during the day—four, wasn’t it?”
“Four, Doctor.”
“So you can be sure you’re being well looked after. Huh-huh.”
The nurse echoed his laugh. Emmet wondered if he had missed a joke.
The doctor then “ran along”—a process which consisted of picking up his bag several times, setting it down, writing a last minute prescription, sending the nurse on a goose-chase for his stethoscope—and eventually blocking out the living room door with his bulky figure. But by this time, Emmet who had no stop-watch, had concluded that “running along” was merely a figure of sick room speech. In any case, he was distracted by the sight of Miss Hapgood flat on the floor where she had tripped over the threshold. Before he could rise she was by his side, firmly clinging to his right wrist.
“Mr. Moppet, I suppose we ought to begin by getting acquainted.”
Emmet was about to begin by supplying his real name when she added:
“One thing I think you ought to know is I happen to be very clumsy. Know what I mean?”
Having travelled widely Emmet had been asked questions in languages he did not understand and often been able to answer by signs—but this time he was stumped. “I’m sorry” did not seem to have the right ring, nor did “What a pity!” In fact he was about to blurt cruelly “Isn’t there something you can do about it?” when the nurse answered the question by releasing his wrist, rising suddenly and in the same gesture toppling over a brass topped table bearing a twelve piece silver tea-service which Emmet had conceived as being placed a long way across the room.
Then, as if the sound of many gongs being struck were a cue in a motion picture, he saw the young face of Carlos Davis in the doorway and beside him the Trainor girl. Carlos Davis was a Dakota small town boy, with none of the affectations ascribed to him—it was no fault of his that he had been born with a small gift of mimicry and an extraordinary personal beauty.
Emmet stood up—trying not to crush a small cream pot under his foot.
“Hello there, Mr. Davis.”
“Greetings!” said Davis, adding reassuringly, “And don’t think I’m the ‘looking-in’ kind of landlord. It happened I ran into the Doc and I wanted to ask if there’s anything I can do.”
“Well—that’s very kind of you.”
Davis’s eyes swept fractionally aside to where Miss Hapgood was having some vague traffic with the silverware—which could not accurately be described as “picking it up,” for the gong sound continued at intervals throughout the conversation.
“I just want you to know I’m at your service, and that I’ll leave my private phone number with your—your—” His eyes comtemplated the Trainor girl with visible appreciation—“your secretary. It’s not in the book, but she’s got it.” He paused. “I mean she’s got the number. Then I’ll go along—one of these broadcasts! Cripes!”
He did a short melancholy head-shake, bade farewell in a wave-salute, vaguely reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth arriving in Canada, and departed with what developed, as he reached the hall, into a series of long athletes’ leaps.
Emmet sat down and spoke to Miss Trainor.
“I don’t see your lips moving,” he said, “and there goes the maiden’s prayer.”
“I tried to keep him out,” she answered coolly. “It was physically impossible. Is there anything special you want from me at this moment?”
“Sure. Sit down and I’ll give you an idea of what the job will be.”
She reminded him of a girl for whom he had suffered deeply at the age of seven—except that instead of pigtails she wore her russet, yellow-streaked hair at shoulder length, and that her smile with its very special queries and promises was like nothing he had ever encountered.
“I’ve written a sort of scientific book. It’s in the kitchen—the delivery man left the box from the publishers there. It’s being published tomorrow and nobody’s going to read it.” He looked at her suddenly. “Do you get all flustered about ocean changes and the genesis of tidal waves?”
The girl looked at him, as if considering.
“Why not?”
“I mean: would you buy a book about that?”
“Well—” A pause “—under certain circumstances I would.”
“Diplomat, eh?”
“Frankly I wouldn’t if I thought I had a chance for an autographed copy.”
“Diplomat,” he grunted. “I should have said ‘Ambassador.’ Anyhow this book will go into the geographic sections of libraries and gather termites till somebody new comes along with the same quirk I had. Meanwhile I’ve got a hunch for an adventure book—might interest boys. Fun to have somebody actually read what you wrote. I’ve taken thousands of notes—will you see if there’s a brief case in the hall.”
“Mr. Mop—” began his nurse in a tone of disapproval but Emmet said:
“Just a minute, Miss Hapgood.” When the Trainor girl returned with the briefcase he continued: “The stuff checked with a red crayon ought to be typed up so I can take a look at it. It’ll be clear enough. Now the question of hours. I don’t think the doctor’ll let me work very much—say five or six hours a day.”
She nodded.
“So you can meet your admirers in time for dinner,” he continued.
She did not smile and Emmet felt as if he had been a little fresh, and wondered if she were engaged or married.
“Are you from somewhere near Boston?” he asked quickly.
“Why—yes. I guess I still talk like it.”
“I was born in New Hampshire.”
They looked at each other, both suddenly at ease, their minds far away across the republic.
Perhaps Miss Hapgood misinterpreted their expressions, or else remembered that this was a crucial case, for she asserted her presence with a sudden up-tilt of a bridge-lamp.
“Mr. Moppet—I have these instructions and we want to begin the treatment before anything.”
She threw a glance at the door and the Trainor girl, realizing that she stood for “anything,” picked up the brief case and withdrew.
“First we’ll get to bed,” said Miss Hapgood.
In spite of the wording of this sentence Emmet’s thoughts could have been printed in The Youth’s Companion as he arose and followed her toward the stairs.
“I’m not going to try to help you Mr. Mom—Mister—because of this clumsiness, but the doctor would like you to walk up slowly, clasping the bannister rail like this.”
Emmet once on the stairs did not look around but he was conscious of a sudden screech of wood followed by a short deprecatory laugh.
“They build these things so jerry in California, don’t they,” she tittered. “Not like in the East.”
“Are you from the East?” he asked from the top of the stairs.
“Oh yes. Born and raised in Idaho.”
He sat down on the side of the bed and untied a shoe, annoyed that his sickness didn’t make him feel sicker.
“All diseases ought to be sudden,” he said aloud, “like the Bubonic Plague.”
“I’ve never taken Bubonic Plague cases,” said Miss Hapgood smugly.
Emmet looked up.
“Never taken—”
He decided to go on with his shoes but now she was on her knees, converting his laces expertly into a cat’s cradle. The same knack applied in a moment to the removal of his coat brought to mind an improvised straitjacket he had once seen on a berserk dockhand.
“I can take care of the trousers myself,” he suggested—whereupon Miss Hapgood stepped lithely around to the other side of the bed, dislodging a brass fire-screen, which spread itself in three great gasps on the floor.
“Quite all right,” he said quickly. “Pajamas are in my suitcase—I’m not quite unpacked.”
After a search Miss Hapgood handed him a full dress shirt and a pair of corduroy slacks—luckily Emmet caught the glint of the studs
