Sheffield's whining high-pitched voice said: “Who is it?”
“Andrews.”
“Come right in.... You're just the man I wanted to see.” Andrews stood with his hand on the knob.
“Do sit down and make yourself right at home.”
Spencer Sheffield was sitting at a little desk in a room with walls of unplaned boards and one small window. Behind the desk were piles of cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes and in the midst of them a little opening, like that of a railway ticket office, in the wall through which the “Y” man sold his commodities to the long lines of men who would stand for hours waiting meekly in the room beyond.
Andrews was looking round for a chair.
“Oh, I just forgot. I'm sitting in the only chair,” said Spencer Sheffield, laughing, twisting his small mouth into a shape like a camel's mouth and rolling about his large protruding eyes.
“Oh, that's all right. What I wanted to ask you was: do you know anything about...?”
“Look, do come with me to my room,” interrupted Sheffield. “I've got such a nice sitting-room with an open fire, just next to Lieutenant Bleezer.... An' there we'll talk... about everything. I'm just dying to talk to somebody about the things of the spirit.”
“Do you know anything about a scheme for sending enlisted men to French universities? Men who have not finished their courses.”