When I sent Miss Hicks into your office with these papers, did you or did you not tell her to go hang them in the lavatory? Just answer me that! That's all!" She straightened up and glowered down at him, a trembling tower of fury. Marc only stared back at her in silent disbelief. "Well, did you!" Her voice pounded against the walls like the beat of a bass drum. "And did you leap at Miss Dugan when she went in with the mail? And chase her around the room! Deny it! I dare you! Just you try and I'll smash the ears right off your two-faced head!"

Marc winced. It didn't seem she was leaving him a very attractive alternative. His ears, though a bit large perhaps, had served him well and faithfully so far, and he was anxious to continue the association. Besides, even if the invitation to rebuttal had been made without threat of disfiguration, he was beginning to doubt his physical ability to accept it. The glove of challenge had been thrown down, but he was too weak even to pick it up. Already, Memphis' angry face was beginning to blur and drift lazily back and forth before him. A curious limpness had come into his body, and he felt himself sagging toward the floor.

"Good grief! He's sick!" Memphis' voice came to him distantly, as though through water. Then he felt her arms about his shoulders, holding him away from the floor. "Well, don't just sit there, you gaping parasites, help me carry him into his office!" Though commanding and brusque, the voice carried a faint overtone of self-reproach.

Being carried ... or dragged, as it seemed ... into the quiet confines of his private office, Marc was only half aware of what was happening. However, as he felt the softness of the lounge beneath him, his head began to clear a little. He opened his eyes. The door was just closing on an assortment of backs and a confusion of whispered conversation. Memphis, sitting in a chair next to the lounge, was staring at him with worried concern.

"I didn't mean to let go at you like that, Mr. Pillsworth," she said regretfully. "But, really, you shouldn't have done it. I was so disappointed."

"Disappointed?" Marc asked weakly. "Shouldn't have done what?"

She waved a hand vaguely through the air. "Oh, everything. Drinking in the office. Making passes at the girls. Chasing them. All the—rest. Somehow it just doesn't seem right to go on like that in a business office."

"Drinking?" Marc looked deeply perplexed. "Who's been drinking?"

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