Avery stopped at a door and rapped sharply. "Who is it?" "Elbert Avery." "Just a moment." He waited. "You can come in now." He turned the knob and opened the door. Angela Claflin half turned on the bench before her dressing table to face him. Her arms were raised and her hands were busy at the back of her head as she replaced the last of the bone pins in a great knot of hair black as a crow's wing. Tweezers, uncovered lipstick, rouge and powder boxes still lay on the table. "Oh, Mustah Avery," in a voice a little high, a little twittery, "we missed you so at the pahty. We wuh so gay. Competition fo dancin' pahtnehs was jes furious and I was so hopin you'd come." "I was on duty--couldn't make it." "Oh I think that's jes cruel not to let jes everybody have some of the fun! You kin dance with me afteh suppah tomorr' night and we'll pretend the pahty's still on." "I'll see." He stepped back toward the door. "But Mistuh Avery, you didn' come hyar jes to listen to me chattuh. Is theh somethin you wanted?" "Just dropped in to see if you enjoyed the party. Captain wanted to know." "Well, bless his haht! You jes thank the cap'm fo me and tell him it's these yere social meetings that help us stay civilized an nice during this _long_ trip." She giggled. "It makes a gihl downright unfemi-nine sometimes, studyin' manurin' problems and sheep-breedin'." "I'll tell him." He backed out and shut the door. "Downright unfeminine," he imitated softly, falsetto. "The old bat--dyed hair and all. No sense of the decorum of space--no sense, period." He walked on. "No loss, either." * * * * * He hadn't intended to stop at Bart Westcott's room, but the door was open and he could hear voices. He pushed the door a little wider and went in. Bart and Charlie Dean and Jeff Kuhnhardt in shirt-sleeves were sitting around a flat-top table covered with large papers in the middle of the room. Bart's left hand was swiping back his mop of reddish-grey hair, his right tapping excitedly with a sharp pencil at a far point on one of the papers. "We could put unit 84 over here in the middle of the back," he was saying emphatically, "which would leave more room for cupboards and the hatch to the storage attics." Kuhnhardt was objecting less vigorously, "But that would cut out the center window and all the women say they want as many as possible. If you put 84 here," he pointed, "you'll have better passage of air from the conditioner through there." His pencil swept an arc across the paper. Charlie Dean was the first to notice the newcomer. "Something we can do for you, Avery?" he asked briefly, setting down his pencil. "Captain's compliments," he answered formally, "and he requests to know whether you enjoyed the Quarter-Way Party."