and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the
vultures, sailing, sailing--some mere circling motes lost in the blue
above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping
shadows slanted continually across our road.

"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.

"I thought they were crows," she confessed.

"Carrion-crows--yes.

"'The carrion-crows
Sing, Caw! caw!'

--only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good-humor once
more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer.

"It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said,
innocently.

"Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said.

"Is Professor Farrago--amusing?" she asked.

"Well--oh, certainly--but not in--in the way I am."

Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of
unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of
what I had done scared me silent.