"Young lady—"
"Please, sir."
"All right. I am. Now what information did you want? It reads—What the hell! Where did that go? Say, how did you—"
Julia hung up. She looked at the birth certificate lying by the telephone. She picked it up. It was none the worse for teleportation.
She put it on the dresser and returned to the phone.
By the time Tuesday was well into the afternoon, when the cool rays of the winter sun lay slanting upon the murmuring crest outside, she had nine birth certificates on the dresser. Nine times the bell boy had come to her room to collect for the telephone charges. The last time, she forgot to make Walt invisible. The bell boy said nothing.
Julia was annoyed by her carelessness. The bell boy's foot-falls died in the carpet of the corridor. She went to the door and looked out. He was gone.
She closed the door and crossed to the bed. She had exhausted her list of names. She set about rousing Walt.
He's handsome, she thought.