Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/251

Rh in advance—and drop the story into the wastepaper-basket.

The man wore suede spats. He dragged his right foot over the tessellated floor, limping. "My name 's Fisher," he said.

Colburn did not volunteer anything in reply.

"What paper do you work for?" he asked as they entered the elevator.

"Rocky Mountain Chronicle," Colburn lied.

"Thought you were with the World."

"So I was."

"Fourth floor."

Colburn studied the back of the elevator boy's head. The boy had had his neck shaved, and it made him look as if he wore a wig. Colburn allowed his face to express a slow esthetic distaste of that cut of the hair. He knew, of course, that Fisher was scrutinizing him in the mirror-panel of the car.

They reached the fourth floor in silence, and padded down the heavy hall-carpet of the corridor in silence; and Fisher threw open the door of a lighted sitting-room, gaudy with scarlet carpet and red walls; and Colburn entered without taking off his hat. It was a joke among his friends that he slept in his hat.

Fisher, having closed the door behind him, crossed the room to close the door of the bedroom also. Colburn seated himself in a rocking-chair and took a book of cigarette papers from his watch-pocket. He was tearing out a leaf when the man asked: "When did you leave the World?"