"What's that?"
"Nothing. Go on. Will I step down to six-eighteen and—?"
"She's sick, or something. Hysterics, I'd say. As far as I could make out it was something about a noise, or a sound or—Anyway, she can't locate it, and her maid says if we don't stop it right away—"
"I'll go down. Maybe it's the plumbing. Or the radiator. Did you ask?"
"No, nothing like that. She kept talking about a wail."
"A what!"
"A wail. A kind of groaning, you know. And then dull raps on the wall, behind the bed."
"Now look here, Ed Healy; I get up at 6:30, but I can't see a joke before ten. If you're trying to be funny!—"
"Funny! Why, say, listen, Mrs. Foote. I may be a night clerk, but I'm not so low as to get you out at half past six to spring a thing like that in fun. I mean it. So did she."
"But a kind of moaning! And then dull raps!"