“Don’t wait up for me, ladybird,” he warned her. “I’ve got to speak at two meetings, and I may be out till all hours.”
“I wish I could go with you to your first meeting. I’ll be thinking of you. I’m so proud of my big boy.”
“Even if he does traffic with the powers of darkness and employ black magic to make himself invisible,” he laughed.
“I think you’re mean, Warren, not to tell me the truth about that mysterious radio speech. I think everybody there must have been drunk as one of the papers hinted, and you don’t want to let me know it.”
Hammond laughed boyishly.
“Why, it was so simple I’m ashamed to tell it. When I do tell you, you’ll be ashamed to think you didn’t guess it.”
“But do you think it’s nice to fib to everybody about it?”
“Nary a fib,” he denied. “I’ve told nothing but the truth, so help me. Now stop worrying and go to bed early.”
He kissed her again and was off.
But Warren Hammond did not get to his first meeting. In fact, he got no more than a scant hundred yards down the narrow country road that led from his suburban home into the capital city.