The first two days there was nothing doing and it was desperate dull. The telephone office was off the main hall to one side of the elevator, a bright little place on the street level. A good part of the time I sat at the desk looking out at the people passing like shadows across the ground glass of the windows. There were some calls for Miss Whitehall, all business. These, no matter what they were, I listened to but got nothing. Sometimes she answered, sometimes Tony Ford. My desk was set so I could see out through the doorway into the hall, and the first morning I was there I saw her pass. She looked better than she had that night in her own apartment, but her face had a grave, worried expression which you couldn’t be surprised at, seeing how things stood with her. It was the second evening and I was thinking of getting ready to go—the building’s exchange closed at half-past six—when a tall fellow with a swagger in his walk and his shoulders held back like he thought a lot of his shape, stopped in the doorway and called out: "Hello, Miss McCalmont. How goes the times?" I looked up surprised and when he saw it wasn’t Miss McCalmont he looked surprised too, raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes with an exaggerated expression like he did it to make you laugh. He was a fine-looking chap if size does it—over six feet and wide across the chest—but his face, broad and flat, with cheeks too large for his features, wasn’t the kind I admire. Also I noticed that the good-natured look it had was contradicted by the gray, small eyes, sharp as a gimlet and hard as a nail. I supposed he was some clerk from one of the offices come to ask Miss McCalmont to dinner—they’re always doing that—and answered careless, fingering at the plugs: "Miss McCalmont’s been transferred." "You don’t say," says he, leaning easy against the doorpost. "Since when is that?" "Since I came," I answered. He grinned, showing teeth as white as split almonds, and his eyes over the grin began to size me up, shrewd and curious. Taking him for some fresh guy that Miss McCalmont was jollying along—they do that too—I paid no attention to him, humming a tune and looking languid at my finger nails. He wasn’t phazed a little bit, but making himself comfortable against the doorpost, said: "Going to stay on here?" "The central’ll give you all the information you want," I answered and wheeling round in my chair looked at the clock. "Ten minutes past six. How slow the time goes when you’re dull." He burst out laughing and he _did_ have a jolly, infectious kind of laugh. "Say," he said, "you’re a live one, aren’t you?" [Illustration: _'Say,’ he said, ’you’re a live one, aren’t you?’_] "I wouldn’t be long, if I had to listen to all the guys that ain’t got anything better to do than block up doorways and try to be fresh." He laughed louder and lolled up against the woodwork. "I like you fine," said he. "Are you a permanency or just a fleeting vision?"