All right Pointsman stomping into Twelfth House, rattling the corkboards down the seven hallways and flights, receptionists making long arms for the telephone dammit now where are you—

Not in his office. But Géza Rózsavölgyi is, and tries to give Roger a hard time. “You are ma-king a spec-tacle of your-self, young man.”

“Shurrup you Transylvanian twit,” snarls Roger, “I’m looking for the boss, see, one funny move out of you and it’s your last taste of O-negative, Jackson, those fangs won’t even be able to gum oatmeal when I’m through wiv you—” Alarmed Rózsavölgyi, retreating around the water cooler, tries to pick up a swivel chair to defend himself with. The seat falls off, and Rózsavölgyi is left with only the base, which happens, embarrassingly, to be shaped like a cross.

“Where is he,” Mexican standoff, Roger gritting his teeth do not succumb to hysteria, it is a counter-productive luxury you cannot, in your present great vulnerability, afford… . “Come on you sod, tell me or you’ll never see the inside of a coffin again—”

In runs a short but spunky secretary, bit of a chubbette here, and commences belting Roger in the shins with the excess-profits tax records from 1940 to ’44 of an English steel firm which happened to share a patent with Vereinigte Stahlwerke for an alloy used in the liquid-oxygen couplings for the line running aft to the S-Gerät in A4 number 00000. But Roger’s shins are not set up for this kind of information. The secretary’s glasses fall off. “Miss Müller-Hochleben,” reading her nametag, “you look beastly without your glasses. Put ssem back on, at vunce!” this comic Nazi routine being inspired by her surname.

“I can’t find them,” German accent all right, “I don’t see too well.” “Well, we’ll see if we can’t help you here—ah! what’s this? Miss Müller-Hochleben!”

“Ja… .”

“What do they look like, these eyeglasses?”

“They are white—”

“With clever little rhinestones all around the rims, Fräulein? eh?”

“Ja, ja, und mit—”

“And running down all the earpieces too, a-and feathers?”

“Ostrich feathers… .”

“Male ostrich feathers, dyed a stunning peacock blue, sprouting off the edges?”

“That is my eyeglasses, ja,” sez the groping secretary, “where are they, please?”

“Right here!” bringing his foot down CRUNCH, smashing them to bright arctic gatherings all over Pointsman’s rug.

“I-say,” offers Rózsavölgyi from a far corner: the one corner of the room, by the way, which is not brightly lit, yes kind of an optic anomaly here, just a straight, square room, no odd-shaped polyhedrons in Twelfth House… and still, this strange, unaccountable prism of shadow in the corner… more than one visitor has popped in to find Mr. Pointsman not at his desk where he ought to be but standing in the shadow-corner—most disturbingly facing into it… . Rózsavölgyi is not himself that fond of the Corner, he’s tried it a few times but only came out shaking his head: “Mis-ter Pointsman, I-don’t like it in there, at all. What poss-ible kind, of a thrill can an-yone get, from such an un-wholesome experience. Eh?” raising one crookedly wistful eyebrow. Pointsman had only looked apologetic, not for himself but to something for Rózsavölgyi, and said gently, “This is one spot in the room where I feel alive,” well bet your ass one or two memos went up toward Ministerial level over that one. If they reached the Minister himself, it was probably as office entertainment. “Oh yes, yes,” shaking his wise old head of sheep’s wool, high, almost Slavic cheekbones crinkling his eyes up into an inattentive but polite laughter, “yes Pointsman’s famous Corner, yes… wouldn’t be surprised if it was haunted, eh?” Reflex laughs from the underlings present, though only grim smiles from the overlings. “Get the S.P.R. in, to have a look,” giggles someone with a cigar. “The poor bloke will think he’s back in the War again.” “Hear, hear,” and, “That’s a good one, all right,” ring through the layering smoke. Practical jokes are all the rage among these particular underlings, a kind of class tradition.