man in my life, but I'd swear it on oath! He is a hypocrite!
Packer's father is a damned old Baptist hypocrite!"





VIII


With this sonorous bit of character reading still ringing in his
ears, Canby emerged from the cream-coloured apartment to find
the stoop-shouldered figure of the also hypocritical son leaning
wearily against the wall, waiting for a delaying elevator. The
attitude was not wholly devoid of pathos, to Canby's view of it.
Neither was the careworn, harried face, unharmoniously topped by
a green hat so sparklingly jaunty, not only in colour but in its
shape and the angle of its perch, that it was outright
hilarious, and, above the face of Packer, made the playwright
think pityingly of a St. Patrick's Day party holding a noisy
celebration upon a hearse.

Its wearer nodded solemnly as the elevator bounced up, flashing,
and settled to the level of the floor; but the quick drop
through the long shaft seemed to do the stage-manager a
disproportionate amount of good. Halfway down he emitted a heavy
"Whew!" of relief and threw back his shoulders. He seemed to
swell, to grow larger; lines verged into the texture of his
face, disappearing; and with them went care and seeming years.
Canby had casually taken him to be about forty, but so radical