was disgusted because he had wasted so much time trying to get around
a Tasper Britt stony "No!" He picked up his papers, stamped out, and
slammed the door.

Britt shook himself, like a spiritualist medium trying to induce the
trance state, and went back to his writing.

After a time a dull, thrumming sound attracted his attention. It was
something like Files's dinner gong, whose summons Mr. Britt was wont to
obey on the instant.

Mr. Britt was certain that it was not the gong; however, he glanced
up at the clock on the wall, then he leaped out of his chair. In his
amazement he rapped out, "Well, I'll be--"

That clock was reliable; it marked the hour of twelve.

Mr. Britt had received convincing evidence that the rhapsody of
composition makes morsels of hours and gulps days in two bites.

But he had completed five stanzas. He concluded that they would do,
though he had planned on five more. Glancing over his composition, he
decided that it might be better to leave the matter a bit vague, just
as the poem left it at the end of the fifth stanza. In the corridor that
morning Vona had shown that too much precipitateness alarmed her; he
might go too far in five more stanzas. The five he had completed would
give her a hint--something to think of. He pondered on that point while
he stuck the paper into an envelope and sealed it.

Mr. Britt hurried the rest of his movements; Files's kitchen