"Gee, I'd like to but I can't."
"I don't see why you took a course that came at such a damn-fool time."
"Can't argue now," said Fanshaw going out the door and tramping down the scarred wooden stairs.
* * * *
"You ask the clerk to call up and see if they're ready," said Cham. They stood outside the revolving door of the hotel, the way people linger shivering at the edge of a pool before diving in. Cham wore a straw hat and white flannel pants and carried a corded luncheon basket in one hand.
"But Cham, that's your business. You ought to do that." Fanshaw felt a stiff tremor in his voice. His hands were cold.
"Go ahead, Fanshaw, for crissake, we can't wait here all day," Cham whispered hoarsely.
Fanshaw found himself engaged in the revolving door with Cham pushing him from behind. From rocking chairs in the lobby he could see the moonfaces of two drummers, out of which eyes like oysters stared at him. He was blushing; he felt his forehead tingle under his new tweed cap. The clock over the desk said fifteen of eleven. He walked firmly over to the desk and stood leaning over the registry book full of blotted signatures and dates. He cleared his throat. He could feel the eyes of the drummers, of the green bellboy, of people passing along the street boring into his back. At last the clerk came to him, a greyfaced man with a triangular mouth and eyeglasses, and said in a squeaky voice:
"Yessir."
"Are Miss ... Is Miss ...? Say, Cham, what are their names, Cham?" Guilty perspiration was trickling on Fanshaw's temples and behind his ears. He felt furiously angry at Cham for having got him into this, at Cham's back and straw hat tipped in the contemplation of the Selkirk Glacier over the fireplace. "Cham!"