Miss Kal used two of her arms to adjust pad and stylus, looking up expectantly. Her other arms were busy transcribing a previously dictated letter into Venusian—her native tongue, although she spoke sixty-eight—and tugging at a humidified legging that had somehow worked down almost to the floor.
"My dearest, darling monkey—" Joe began. Miss Kal looked up again in amazement. Joe grinned at her and said, "It's to my wife."
Miss Kal nodded wisely and began to write.
"—I am sending this from my dark and dismal office," Joe went on. It was a habit they had when anything went wrong at breakfast. Joe had first proposed by audiogram.
He casually watched a skimmer that was in danger of creating a honey of a traffic jam down below. Didn't that schlemiel know his left from his right?
"—Where was I? Oh, yes—my dark and dismal office." Joe scratched a cigarette alight, blew a happy smoke ring. "I hope that you are feeling much, much better and that you will take luncheon with me in the Pluto Room of the you-know-what Hotel—" His mind went back to those honeymoon days and he lost track of his dictation again. Another smoke ring, a somewhat more thoughtful one.
"You-know-what Hotel—" said Miss Kal phlegmatically.
"Yes—ah—just end it 'at one fifteen sharp, your everloving Joe.'"
There was a knock on the door and Miss Kal set down her pad and stylus and started to get up. Joe was on his feet and around the desk in a second.
"Stay right where you are," he smiled; "I need the exercise."