Marc choked, presumably with emotion. "I only wanted to inquire just why I can't use the telephone to try to find my wife?" he said in a strained voice.
"Another matter of form," the congressman said. "Good heavens, man, do you really care so much to find your wife? It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard of. I must remind you that you and the young lady now constitute a matter for official inquiry."
Marc clenched his fists tight at his sides. "Oh, Christ!" he wailed.
"At least he's shouting for someone else for a change," the congressman said complacently. "An erratic type. Subversives usually are, though. Next he'll be calling for Phillip Morris."
"Poor Marc," Toffee put in appealingly. "He just can't bring himself to view the end of civilization with the same happy composure the rest of us do. It upsets him."
"No use fighting the inevitable," the congressman said. "When the whole country has gone gypsy, you might just as well snatch up your skirts, so to speak, and join in the innocent merriment."
"Seems a trifle fatalistic," Toffee said. "Sometimes I rather agree with Marc that you owe it to yourself to resist to the end ... even if it's only an attitude. It seems more ... human ... somehow."
"Thank you for that much," Marc said with heavy irony. "At least my attitude pleases you."
"Welcome, I'm sure," Toffee murmured, then turned back to the congressman. "Tell me, congressman, just who is it that's going to do all this bomb dropping anyway? I haven't heard any name mentioned yet."