“Peggy Warden,” she told him. “What now?”
“While the attorneys haggle over my epoch-making contract, you’re supposed to introduce me to the writing talent.”
“The third door on the left down the passage,” she said. “Don’t let them get your goat.”
“My goat is in cold storage for the duration,” said the Saint. “See you later.”
He went to the third door down the passage and knocked on it. A voice like that of a hungry wolf bawled “Yeow?” The Saint accepted that as an invitation, and went in.
Two men sat around the single battered desk. Both of them had their feet on it. The desk looked as if it had learned to think nothing of that sort of treatment. The men had an air of proposing that the desk should like it, or else.
One of them was broad and stubby, with a down-turned mouth and hair turning gray. The other was taller and thinner, with gold-rimmed glasses and a face that looked freshly scrubbed, like the greeting of a Fuller Brush Man. They inspected the Saint critically while he closed the door behind him, and looked at each other as if their heads pivoted off the same master gear.
“I thought he’d have a machine-gun stuck down his pants leg,” said the gray-haired one.
“They didn’t put the chandelier back in time,” countered the Fuller Brush Man, “or he could swing on it. Or am I thinking of somebody else?”
“Excuse me,” said the Saint gravely. “I’m supposed to be taking an inventory of this circus. Are you the performing seals?”