"That's right," the clerk replied.
"Oh well, I know him. I should like to see him personally."
"See Mr. Iredale? But he's the O.C.P.T.N.C."
"Does that confer invisibility?" she asked. "I tell you I'm a friend of his. If you send up my card I'm sure he'll see me."
"But he never sees anybody," Mr. Mathers objected. "I'm afraid you didn't understand that he's the Officer Controlling Passenger Traffic from Neutral Countries in Bucharest. If he was to see everybody that came to this office, he wouldn't be able to control himself, let alone passenger traffic. No, really, joking apart, madam, Mr. Iredale is very busy and by no means well."
"He's worn out," put in Miss Johnstone, who, having by now plaited four necklaces into a single coil, was swinging the result round and round like a skipping-rope. "His nerves are worn out. But if you like, I'll take up your card."
"You might ask him at the same time if he wants all the Greek names entered under Y transferred to G, will you?" said Mr. Mathers. "Oh, and Miss Johnstone," he called after her, "there seems to be some confusion between Tch and Ts. Ask him if he's got any preference. Awful names the people in this part of Europe get hold of," he added to Sylvia. "Even Mr. Iredale can't transpose the Russians, and of course the War Office likes accuracy. There was rather a strafe the other day because a man traveling from here to Spain got arrested three times on the way, owing to his name being rather like a suspect spelled differently by us, the French, and the Italians. As a matter of fact, the original suspect's dead, but his name was spelled a fourth way in the notification that was sent around, and so it's not realized yet."
"It must be rather like that whispering game," Sylvia said. "You know, where somebody at one end of the room starts a sentence and it comes out quite differently at the other."
Sylvia could not make out why she did not feel more nervous when she was following Miss Johnstone up-stairs to meet Philip for the first time since she had run away from him, thirteen years ago. The fact was that her anxiety to escape from Rumania with Queenie outweighed everything else, and she was so glad to find somebody she knew in a position of authority who would be able to help her in the matter of Queenie's passport that any awkwardness was quenched in relief. The discovery of Philip was such an encouraging answer by destiny to the reappearance of Zozo.
He came forward to greet her from behind a large roll-top desk, and she saw that he looked tired and ill, yet, except for his baldness, not really much older.