“Not you, certainly.”
“Because you haven’t seen me in my shell. That’s where I mostly live. I’ve broken out for a time.”
“Don’t you like it outside, Butterfly?” he queried with a hint of playful caress in his voice.
“I like that name for myself,” she returned quickly. “Though a butterfly couldn’t return to its chrysalis, no matter how much it wanted to, could it? But you may call me that, since we’re to be friends.”
“Then you do like it outside your shell.”
“It’s exhilarating. But I suppose I should find it too rough for my highly sensitized skin in the long run.... Are you going to write to me if I write to you?”
“What about? That Number Six came in making bad steam, and that a west-bound freight, running extra, was held up on the siding at Marchand for half a day?”
“Is that all you have to write about?”
Banneker bethought himself of the very private dossier in his office. “No; it isn’t.”
“You could write in a way all your own. Have you ever written anything for publication?”