"Hell, up in my office we don't keep any hours at all."
"You aren't so near to centers of operation."
"You mean to that old fool?" Major Baldwin pointed with a stout forefinger at the mahogany doors. "The investigation'll fix him.... How soon are you packing up for home?"
"Probably in a couple of weeks ... I'm afraid I'll have to finish up this album of Child Relief, 1918-1919, first ... I'm bored to death with this work, aren't you?"
Major Baldwin got to his feet and went to the window. He stood a long while looking out, twirling his cane in one hand. Fanshaw continued sorting photographs of ragged Italian children.
"Gosh, I don't see it," said Major Baldwin suddenly.
"See what?" Fanshaw was poring over a group of a Red Cross captain and a nurse with soup ladles in their hands surrounded by ragged Neapolitan guttersnipes.
"Going home after this."
Fanshaw pushed his chair back silently and got up from the desk. They both leaned out of the window and hung over the city that seemed to sway in the great waves of honeycolored sunlight like jetsam in a harbor swell. They could smell gardens and scorched olive oil, and a drowsy afternoon murmur came up to them, punctuated occasionally by the screech of a tram round a corner or a shout or a distant church bell.
"That's true ... There have been many enjoyable ..."