XXII.
"Hi, Skeleton-gazer!"
"Ho, Big Chief Feet-on-the-desk!"
"I see that your red-headed sector chief is still occupying all strategic salients in force." Haynes had paused in the surgeon general's office on his way to another of his conferences with the Gray Lensman. "Can't you get rid of her or don't you want to?"
"Don't want to. Couldn't, anyway, probably. The young vixen would tear down the hospital—she might even resign, marry him out of hand, and lug him off somewhere. You want him to recover, don't you?"
"Don't be any more of an idiot than you have to. What a question!"
"Don't work up a temperature about MacDougall, then. As long as she's around him—and that's twenty-four hours a day—he'll get everything in the Universe that he can get any good out of."
"That's so, too. This other thing's out of our hands now, anyway. Kinnison can't hold his position long against her and himself both—overwhelmingly superior force. Just as well, too—civilization needs more like those two."
"Check, but the affair isn't out of our hands yet, by any means. We've got quite a little more fine work to do there, as you'll see, before it's a really good job. But about Kinnison—"