"Sparks," he demanded, "what rhymes with void?"
"Boid," I told him promptly. "Which I ain't ... and 'annoyed' which I am. Can't a hard-working radioman even catch up his slumbers around here without you getting in his hair? Why? When did you develop the poet complex?"
He flushed and laughed awkwardly, "Well, it—er—doesn't really matter," he temporized. "I was just trying to—Well, I thought it would be amusing to write a little poem to say to Diane when I gave her the roses. You know, a sort of a—love song."
"Some people," I snorted, "are born for trouble, and some people have trouble thrust upon them ... but you're the first guy I ever knew who went out of his way looking for it. Now it's love songs to go with the roses. By the way, how are the roses coming along?"
"Why, all right, I suppose," said Biggs. "I haven't been in to see them since yesterday. You see, I have the thermoes turned up to max in that room and it's pretty hot—"
"Not half so hot," I told him, "as the Old Man's going to be when he finds out you're the one who swiped that container from the cargo bin."
Biggs looked started. "Oh! Has he discovered one of them's gone?"
"You're darn tootin' he has! He came busting up here and asked me if I knew anything about it. I suggested maybe it was mice, but that didn't go over so big on account of mice don't generally build lead-covered bungalows. So if he happens to ask you, you'd better—"
"Better," interrupted an irate voice from the doorway, "what?"