“How? Why? What’s happened?”
“I’d like to tell you, but I have n’t got time. They’re waiting for me downstairs.”
“Who?”
“Advertisers. Waiting to break into The Guardian. They’re lined up in the hallways. I’ll have to issue rain-checks.”
“Stop talking like a lunatic, Andy, and explain.”
The demented manager perched upon the corner of the editorial table, with an effect of being poised for instant flight.
“Don’t ask me to explain, because I can’t. I tell you the advertisers of this town have suddenly got a mania—and we’re the mania. It began two days ago and it’s been growing worse right along. I did n’t think I’d ever be able to break through to the office this morning. They waylaid me on the way down. I don’t know who began it. I think it was Stormont, of Stormont & Lehn. He fell out of a doorway on me, and when I got loose there was a thousand-dollar advertising contract stuck down my collar. Then old Pussy-foot Ellison came sobbing up the street—”
“What the devil—”
“Don’t interrupt me or I’ll bust! And never mind my metaphors. It comes easier that way. Well, he blubbered out his sweet message of intending to double his space in the paper instead of cutting us out; and before I’d got his tears fairly brushed off my shoulder, Vogt, the Botch, rushed in, threw his arms round my neck and tried to kiss me, and handed me an eight-hundred-dollar-space order in lieu of damages; and asked whether we would n’t like flowers sent round mornings, gratis! Boss, I can just see you writing an editorial with one of Vogt’s tea-roses stuck coyly behind your ear—”
“Never mind my ear. Go on!”