R. N. Ione Phillips flounced down Corridor Five of Block Nineteen, white elaston uniform rustling with permanent and indignant starch.
"Those old biddies," she muttered. "Both of them say they want lilac pattern dresses and then when they come they're mad because they have dresses just alike. They're just like children!" Miss Phillips didn't care much for children.
"Won't wash for meals but spend hours taking up all the driers in the beauty salon. Bob Warner doesn't realize what we have to put up with."
Her angry stalk slowed to a demure mincing as she approached the elevator and imagined Dr. Warner coming out of it.
Behind the door she had just closed with apparently thoughtful gentleness, Mrs. Maeva McGaughey and Mrs. Alice Kaplan in lilac acelle were considering the meal on the table between them.
"Creamed spinach, Maeva, for breakfast!" Mrs. Kaplan was withering in her distaste.
"And that Miss Phillips—treats us as if we were babies," whined Mrs. McGaughey. "The way she talks you'd think she'd brought us a couple of wedding gowns. Shoddy stuff these days, too."
Mrs. Kaplan looked slyly at Mrs. McGaughey. "I know how to fix her, Maeva. Let's pour this spinach down our fronts."
Ione had reached the end of the corridor and was tripping abstractedly by the desk facing the row of elevators.