“I used to sail a catboat,” I said.
My answer seemed to puzzle her, and she frowned. Then she laughed delightedly, like one having made a discovery.
“You don’t say ‘sailorman,’” she said. “What do you ask, over here, when you want to know if a man is in the navy?”
She spoke as though we were talking a different language.
“We ask if he is in the navy,” I answered.
She laughed again at that, quite as though I had said something clever.
“And you are not?”
“No,” I said, “I am in Joyce & Carboy’s office. I am a stenographer.”
Again my answer seemed both to puzzle and to surprise her. She regarded me doubtfully. I could see that she thought, for some reason, I was misleading her.
“In an office?” she repeated. Then, as though she had caught me, she said: “How do you keep so fit?” She asked the question directly, as a man would have asked it, and as she spoke I was conscious that her eyes were measuring me and my shoulders, as though she were wondering to what weight I could strip.