Champagne for One

I told her I would, and I could have added that I’d rather have my job than hers, or Katherine’s either. As I got my coat from a chair and put it on I figured that if she had been there fifteen years and had averaged one a week Katherine’s would be the 780th, or even at two a month it would be the 360th… On my way out to the car I had a worry. If I met the girls on their way back the manoeuvre would have to be repeated with me headed downhill and them up, and I didn’t like the idea of them rubbing their fronts along the side of the car again, with the door handles. But luckily, as I started the engine, here they came, straggling from the tunnel of the driveway into the cleared space. Their faces were even pinker and they were puffing. One of them sang out, "Oh, are you going?" and another one called, "Why don’t you stay for lunch?" I told them some other time. I was glad I had turned the car around on arrival. I had an impulse to tell them Katherine was tuning up for her big act to see how they would take it, but decided it wouldn’t be tactful, and when they had cleared the way I fed gas and rolled. The only one who didn’t tell me good-bye was out of breath.

Chapter Eight

When we have company in the office I like to be there when they arrive, even if the matter being discussed isn’t very important or lucrative, but that time I missed it by five minutes. When I got there at five past six that afternoon Wolfe was behind his desk, Orrie Gather was in my chair, and Helen Yarmis, Ethel Varr, and Rose Tuttle were there in three of the yellow chairs facing Wolfe. As I entered, Orrie got up and moved to the couch. He has not entirely given up the idea that some day my desk and chair will be his for good, and he liked to practise sitting there when I am not present.