At the sound of her voice and out of sheer nervousness, he gulped. She was alive, at least. He pinched her cheek; and shook his head, rather meaninglessly. Then he braced himself and went on in, wholly unaware that he was still tiptoeing.
Two girl stenographers sat in a coiner, whispering. At sight of him they hushed. He passed on. The other girls were not at their desks, though he thought that most of their hats and coats hung in the farther corner as usual. The office boy was not to be seen. The copy editor and proof-reader was not in her cubby-hole at the end of the corridor. Miss Hardwick's door was shut; but as he passed he thought he heard a rustle within, and he was certain that he saw the tip of a hat feather over the partition.
He came to his own door. It was ajar. He felt sure he had closed it when he left. It was his regular practise to close it. He stopped short, considering this as if it was a matter of genuine importance. Then it occurred to him that the boy might have been in there with proofs.
Doctor Wilde's door at the end of the corridor stood open. The seven-foot square mahogany desk, heaped with papers and books, looked natural enough, but the chair behind it was empty.
He tiptoed forward, threw his door open. Then he literally gasped. For there, between the desk and the window, stood the Walrus. He held the nicked editorial shears in his hand—he must have picked them up from the floor—and was in the act of looking from them to the cut ends of the wires by the buzzer.
Hy's overcharged nervous system leaped for the nearest outlet. “I cut the damn things myself,” he said, “this morning.”
The Walrus turned toward him an ashen face.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I didn't know they were objectionable to you.”
“I've hated them for three years,” said Hy.
“You should have spoken. It is better to speak of things.”