Some Buried Caesar

"As soon as may be. Now if you are not too involved. Mr. Bennett has been looking for me at the request of Mr. Osgood, who is waiting in the exposition office and wishes to see me. Mr. Shanks and I shall have finished our lunch in ten minutes."

"Okay. I'm badly involved but I'll manage it."

I went back to my table and told Lily we must part, and summoned the Methodist to give me a check. The damage proved to be $1.60, and, having relinquished a pair of dimes for the missionaries, I reflected with pride that the firm had cleaned up 20 cents net on the deal.

Lily said in a tone of real disappointment without any petulance that I could detect, "I had supposed we would spend the afternoon together, watching the races and riding on the merry-go-round and throwing balls at things…"

"Not ever," I said firmly. "Not the afternoon. Whatever the future may have in store for us, whatever may betide, I work afternoons. Understand once and for all that I am a workingman and I only play with toys at odd moments. I am working when you would least expect it. Throughout this delightful lunch with you, I have been working and earning money."

"I suppose while you were paying me all those charming compliments one part of your brain, the most important part, was busy on some difficult problem."

"That's the idea."

"Dear Escamillo. Darling Escamillo. But the afternoon comes to an end, doesn't it? What will you be doing this evening?"

"God knows. I work for Nero Wolfe."

7

THE BOOM in die exposition offices, to which Bennett led us, on a kind of mezzanine in the' Administration Building, was large and lofty, with two dusty windows in the board wall and plain board partitions for the other three sides. The only furniture were three big rough tables and a dozen wooden chairs. On one table were a pile of faded bunting and a bushel basket half-full of apples; the other two were bare. Three of the chairs were occupied. Sidney Darth, Chairman of the North Atlantic Exposition Board, was on the edge of one but jumped up as we entered;

Frederick Osgood, the upstate duke, had sagging shoulders and a tired and bitter but determined expression; and Nancy Osgood sat with her spine curved and looked miserable all over.