"The last letter I got was almost six months ago. She didn't say anything much except she said that before long she was going to see me in Paris. I don't know how. You haven't heard Mr. Twice say anything about giving me an assignment over there, the annual meeting of the house committee of the Louvre or anything like that?"
"He hasn't said anything to me about it."
Peter didn't wait for the singing nor was he particularly worried about it. He was cheered by the fact that Pat had spoken so casually of the opera and of Maria. When he got home to the flat he noticed a big book in blue paper covers on the table. It was "Ulysses" by James Joyce.
"Why, that's the book Pat named the pool balls after." He picked it up and began at the beginning and then skipped ahead frantically. An hour or so later Pat came in. Peter pointed to the book and looked at him reproachfully.
"What does it mean, Pat?" he asked. Stumbling over it at random he read:
"In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended. Douce with Kennedy your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other, high piercing notes."
"I don't know," said Pat. "I haven't got that far yet. But what difference does it make what it means? That isn't the point. There's music in it."
As Peter was going to bed he cursed silently to himself. "Damn this music. They're even trying to play it on typewriters now."
CHAPTER IX
On sports Pat worked better and more cheerfully. It was Pat who devised the note at one of the Princeton football games, "The Tiger eleven has three fine backs and the greatest of these is Gharrity." And he came through splendidly when he was assigned to cover Marshal Foch's activities at another game and report in detail what the Frenchman did. Peter found the story posted on the board in the Bulletin office. In fact Twice had allowed Pat to have his signature in the paper. Right after Peter's own story it came—"By Peter Neale, Jr."