“You guessed?”
“I guessed now, by the way you're acting. Why?”
Oliver turned to face him. “Corporal, something's come up. I think it best that we break up.” He frowned and kicked sand again. “Sally thinks so, too.”
“Spill it,” Gary ordered once more.
“Well… one of us is going to be a father.”
Gary held his silence, considering the news. It did not particularly surprise him, although he had not suspected it. He had formed the habit months earlier of taking Sally for granted, accepting her casually as no more than another woman, a convenient cook, a pleasant interlude. Now this new element had been added.
“One of us, huh?” he answered at last. “How do you act when this happens? Are we supposed to congratulate each other, or what?”
“I don't know,” Oliver said desperately. “It never happened to me before! And I don't know which of us is the father — that upsets me. Sally doesn't know, either.”
The beginning of a grin appeared on Gary's lips.
Oliver was quick to stop it. “I refuse to think of it in a humorous vein and I don't want any wisecracks! That's why I want to dissolve our partnership, corporal; right now, today. I want you to stop—”