Connington lolled back, chuckled, and unwrapped a greenleaved cigar from the tooled leather case in his breast pocket. He snipped open the end with a pair of gold nippers attached to the case by a golden chain, and used a gold-cased lighter set with a ruby. He puffed, and let the smoke writhe out between his large, well-spaced teeth. His eyes glinted behind the drift of smoke that hung in the air in front of his face.

“Let’s keep polite, Dr. Hawks,” he said. “Let’s look at it in the light of reason. Continental Electronics pays you to head up Research, and you’re the best there is.” Connington leaned forward just a little, shifted the cigar just a little in his fingers, and changed the curve of his smile. “Continental Electronics pays me to run Personnel.”

Hawks thought for a minute and then said, “Very well. How soon can I see this man?”

Connington lolled back and took a satisfied puff on the cigar. “Right now. He lives right nearby, on the coast — up on the cliffs there?”

“I know the general location.”

“Good enough. If you’ve got an hour or so, what say we run on down there now?”

“I have nothing else to do if he turns out not to be the right man.”

Connington stretched and stood up. His belt slipped below the bulge of his stomach, and he stopped to hitch up his trousers. “Use your phone,” he muttered perfunctorily around the cigar, reaching across Hawks’ desk. He called an outside number and spoke to someone briefly — and, for a moment, sourly — saying they were coming out. Then he called the company garage and ordered his car brought around to the building’s main entrance. When he hung up the phone, he was chuckling again. “Well, time we get downstairs, the car’ll be there.”