"Don't go." His voice close behind her made her pause. "I need you—officially."
She looked round at him, and despite herself the corners of her lips began to twitch. "You really are the most impossible person," she remarked. "What do you need me for?"
He stepped back to his usual seat, and pointed to a small mossy bank beside him. "Come and sit down there, and let's think. . . ."
After a moment's hesitation she did as he said.
"It's rather a knotty problem, isn't it?" he continued after a moment. "I might want you to flirt with me in order to avert my suicide in the pond through boredom. . . ."
"You may want," she retorted.
"But it's in the official programme?"
"You're not on the official list," she flashed back.
"Worse and worse," he murmured. "I begin to despair. However, I won't try you as highly as that. I will just ask you a plain, honest question. And I rely on you to answer me truthfully. . . . Do you think I should be a more attractive being; do you think I should be more capable of grappling with those great problems which—ah—surround us on all sides, if I could dissect rats—or even mice?" he added thoughtfully after a pause.
The girl looked at him in amazement. "Are you trying to be funny?" she asked at length.