Philip Holland said briskly, "The risks run by the ambitious."
The office door opened and a tall stranger entered. He had a strange gait, one shoulder held considerably lower than the other, to the point that Joe would have thought it the result of a wound hadn't the other obviously never been a soldier. The newcomer, office pallor heavily upon him, but his air of languor obviously assumed and artificial, darted his eyes around the room, to Holland, Nadine, and then to Joe where they rested for a moment.
He murmured some banality to Nadine, indicative of a long acquaintance and then approached Joe, who had automatically come to his feet, and extended a hand to be shaken. "I'm Frank Hodgson. You're Joe Mauser. I'm not fracas buff, but I know enough about current developments to know that. Welcome aboard, Joe."
Joe shook the hand offered, in some surprise.
"Welcome aboard?" he said.
Hodgson looked to Philip Holland, his eyebrows raised in question.
Holland said crisply, "You're premature, Frank. Dr. Haer and Mauser have just arrived."
"Oh." The newcomer found himself a chair, crossed his legs and fumbled in his pocket for a pipe, leaving it to the others to resume the conversation he had interrupted.
Philip Holland said to Joe, "Frank is assistant to Wallace Pepper." He looked at Hodgson and frowned. "I don't believe you have any other title do you, Frank?"