She smiled. The smile was friendly, but it made her eyes look even shrewder.

“Very good ad libbing,” she said approvingly. “I wouldn't want you to disobey your instructions. Will it take long?” “That depends. Somewhere between five minutes and five hours.” “By no means five hours. Please be as brief as you can. Come this way.” She turned and started for the square hall and I followed. We went through a door, crossed a room that had a piano, a bed, and an electric refrigerator in it, which left it anybody's guess how to name it, and on through another door into a corner room big enough to have six windows, three on one side and three on another. Every object in it, and it was anything but empty, was either pale yellow or pale blue. The wood, both the trim and the furniture, was painted blue, but other things-rugs, upholstery, curtains, bed coverlet-were divided indiscriminately between the two colours. Among the few exceptions were the bindings of the books on the shelves and the clothes of the blond young man who was seated on a chair. The woman lying on the bed kept to the scheme, with her lemon-coloured house gown and her light blue slippers.

The blond young man rose and came to meet us, changing expression on the way. My first glimpse of his face had shown me a gloomy frown, but now his eyes beamed with welcome and his mouth was arranged into & smile that would have done a brush salesman proud. I suppose he did it from force of habit, but it was uncalled for because I was the one who was going to sell something.

“Mr Goodwin,” Deborah Koppel said. “Mr Meadows.” “Bill Meadows. Just make it Bill, everyone does.” His handshake was out of stock, but he had the muscle for it.