“And the U. P. must circulate an unconditional withdrawal to overtake as quickly as possible the harm it has already done.”
There was not an instant’s hesitation. “If he wants that, he’s entitled to have it certainly.”
“But there’s so little time,” said Helen urgently. “It is only with the utmost difficulty that Mr. Fuller has been persuaded to keep the provincial Mercury off the machines until a quarter to twelve, in the hope of being able to get your permission to omit the speech altogether. There’s only five minutes now, I’m afraid.”
“Much may happen in five minutes at the headquarters of the planetary bodies.” The playfulness of the Colossus was delightful. It was also reassuring. For it had been said of him that inside five minutes he was fully competent to knock Saturn out of the firmament and put it back again.
“Have I your authority to stop the Mercury?” Her eagerness was a little pathetic.
“Why, of course,—of course.” The tone was thistledown.
“If I may use your telephone——” She was on her feet, the woman of action.
“Sit down, please, and go on reading his clever book while I myself speak a little word to the Office. These rubs will arise, don’t you know, in the best regulated families, as Lucifer, Son of the Morning, is said to have remarked on a much-celebrated occasion to President Wilson.” With the air of a very kindly, rather boyish, old gentleman having a game of romps with a favorite grandchild, he forced her back to her chair and her book. And then with a kind of elephantine humor he made for the door.
At its threshold, with a hearty laugh, he turned again. “The revised version of this priceless old-world story is that it was Mr. President who really made the remark to the Eldest of the Sons of Time in old John Milton’s—or was it old John Morley’s?—hearing. However, the point is not material at the moment. A little word with the Office.”
With the pleasant chuckle of one basking agreeably in the light of his own humor, he went out of the room.