“So many things shock me, I dont see that it matters much.... But come along let’s get out of here. The sun’s shining outside and people are coming out of church and going home to overeat and read at their Sunday papers among the rubberplants ...”
“Oh Jimmy you’re a shriek ... Just one minute. Look out you’re hooked onto my best shimmy.”
A girl with short black hair in a yellow jumper was folding the sheets off the cot in the hall. For a second under the ambercolored powder and the rouge Jimmy did not recognize the face he had seen through the crack in the door.
“Hello Cassie, this is ... Beg pardon, Miss Wilkins this is Mr. Herf. You tell him about the lady across the airshaft, you know Sappo the Monk.”
Cassandra Wilkins lisped and pouted. “Isn’t she dweadful Mr. Herf.... She says the dweadfullest things.”
“She merely does it to annoy.”
“Oh Mr. Herf I’m so pleased to meet you at last, Ruth does nothing but talk about you.... Oh I’m afwaid I was indiscweet to say that.... I’m dweadfully indiscweet.”
The door across the hall opened and Jimmy found himself looking in the white face of a crookednosed man whose red hair rode in two unequal mounds on either side of a straight part. He wore a green satin bathrobe and red morocco slippers.
“What heow Cassahndrah?” he said in a careful Oxford drawl. “What prophecies today?”
“Nothing except a wire from Mrs. Fitzsimmons Green. She wants me to go to see her at Scarsdale tomorrow to talk about the Gweenery Theater.... Excuse me this is Mr. Herf, Mr. Oglethorpe.” The redhaired man raised one eyebrow and lowered the other and put a limp hand in Jimmy’s.