Miss Graine dismissed Choudhury and Chai with a slight grimace which, while improper, contrasted flatteringly with her deferential attitude to Pylos. “They mustn’t bother you with trivialities.” She took away the Organization’s Founding Constitution. “I can mark passages for your attention, if you wish.” She paused. “Of course, if you prefer…”

“No, that will be quite all right.” Pylos could not help being pleased to find his time was precious. “Most helpful,” he said again, this time with irrepressible sincerity.

Miss Graine gave him one of her brief, pin-pointing smiles. “I’ll do it immediately.” She took the pile of documents and left the room.

When the weighted door had given its ultimate sealing click, Pylos placed the list of meetings before him. The fact that Sadie Graine had proved efficient in no way lightened his spirits—on the contrary, it oppressed him with disproportionate foreboding. He felt that her derogatory reference to Choudhury and Chai should not have been allowed to pass. But then, she really had not made any remark about them—and were they not, in truth, a rather Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern pair? In any case, Pylos thought, pulling himself together, it’s all absurd. She won’t be here more than a few days. Appeased by this thought, he took up Miss Graine’s useful list, leaned back in his Organization chair, and began to study it.

Recounting the day to his wife that evening he mentioned Sadie Graine. “What a secretary they’ve given me,” he said. “A real battle-axe. But I’m going to ask for a change tomorrow.”

There followed some weeks of what Pylos was later to think of as the Phony War. As he made his first steps across the Organizational scene, Miss Graine was ever at his side and, although he could not relish the proximity, Pylos admitted to himself that she was worth her weight in gold. He now told himself that he would retain her merely for these weeks of settling-in. Disturbingly, he felt that Miss Graine herself sensed this callous intention—but perhaps this was imagination. Considering how much he had to cope with at this time, it was odd the way Sadie Graine preyed on his mind.

Pylos’s first official act was to name his new department. The interim titles that had been used—“Economic Relief of Under-Privileged Territories” and “Mission for Under-Developed Lands”—were well enough in their way, but they combined a note of condescension with initials which, when contracted, proved somewhat unfortunate. Pylos consulted with senior members of the Designation and Terminology Branch, seeking some descriptive but trenchant phrase, some phrase that would neither patronize nor minimize. No agreement was reached until Miss Graine, clearing his tray one afternoon, offered her suggestion. So it was that DALTO came into being—the Department of Aid to the Less Technically Oriented.

Nevertheless, Pylos intended to rid himself of Miss Sadie Graine. It was the case of Ashmole-Brown that brought matters to a head.