"And don't work too hard, Mr. Halsey. You don't want to have a nervous break——"
"No," shouted Roger, "I don't. But I will if you don't leave me alone."
As the door closed behind Mr. Golden, Roger's stenographer turned sympathetically around.
"You shouldn't have let him get away with that," she said. "What's in there? Clothes?"
"No," answered Roger absently. "Just all my wife's shoes."
He slept in the office that night on a sofa beside his desk. At dawn he awoke with a nervous start, rushed out into the street for coffee, and returned in ten minutes in a panic—afraid that he might have missed Mr. Garrod's telephone call. It was then 6.30.
By eight o'clock his whole body seemed to be on fire. When his two artists arrived he was stretched on the couch in almost physical pain. The phone rang imperatively at 9.30, and he picked up the receiver with trembling hands.
"Hello."
"Is this the Halsey agency?"
"Yes, this is Mr. Halsey speaking."