Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/138

128 that wharf-fringed waterway very much as though he should like to take a header down into it. Then, as he slowly and dejectedly turned about, his eye fell on the forgotten muff.

He crossed to his desk and took the furry pillow up in his hands, turning it over and over. He meditatively stroked the deep pelt, sniffed at it, started for the door, and just as suddenly stopped. Then he quietly removed two tennis racquets and a box of golf-balls wrapped in a llama-wool sweater-coat from the bottom drawer of his desk and into this same drawer carefully tucked away the blue-fox muff—after which he stood, irresolute and unmoving, for another full five minutes.

Then Gerry West, as though to make up for lost time, exploded into a sudden fury of movement. He punched the buzzer-button for his stenographer, jerked down the messenger-call lever and caught up the telephone directory with one hand while he possessed himself of the receiver with the other.