"Of course not. I haven't begun to explain. Dad, in your rambles through this joint you've noticed a girl with glorious red-gold hair, I imagine?"
"Ann Chester?"
"Ann Chester. I'm going to marry her."
"Jimmy!"
"But she doesn't know it yet. Now, follow me carefully, dad. Five years ago Ann Chester wrote a book of poems. It's on that desk there. You were using it a moment back as second-base or something. Now, I was working at that time on the Chronicle. I wrote a skit on those poems for the Sunday paper. Do you begin to follow the plot?"
"She's got it in for you? She's sore?"
"Exactly. Get that firmly fixed in your mind, because it's the source from which all the rest of the story springs."
Mr. Crocker interrupted.
"But I don't understand. You say she's sore at you. Well, how is it that you came in together looking as if you were good friends when I let you in this morning?"
"I was waiting for you to ask that. The explanation is that she doesn't know that I am Jimmy Crocker."