ppens all the
time. Thorne Smith's last novel--"

"It wasn't Thorne Smith's and it wasn't a novel," she said
dogmatically.

"But it sold. What one writer starts, another can finish."

"Nobody ever finished _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_."

"Oh, hell."

"Len, it's impossible. It is! Let me finish--if you're thinking we
could have somebody rewrite the last part Leo did--"

"Yeah, I just thought of that."

"--even that wouldn't do any good. You'd have to go all the way back,
almost to page one. It would be another story when you got through.
Let's go to bed."

"Moy, do you remember when we used to worry about the law of
opposites?"

"Mm?"

"The law of _opposites_. When we used to be afraid the kid would turn
out to be a pick-and-shovel man with a pointy head."

"Uh. Mm."

He turned. Moira was standing with one hand on her belly and the other
behind her back. She looked as if she were about to start practicing a
low bow and doubted she could make it.

"What's the matter now?" he asked.

"Pain in the small of my back."

"Bad one?"

"No...."

"Belly hurt, too?"

She frowned. "Don't be foolish. I'm feeling for the contraction. There
it comes."

"The--but you just said the small of your back."

"Where do you think labor pains usually start?"

* * * * *

The pains were coming at twenty-minute intervals and the taxi had not
arrived. Moira was packed and ready. Len was trying to set her a good
example by remaining calm. He strolled over to the wall calendar,
gazed at it in an offhand manner, and turned away.

"Len, I know it's only the fifteenth of July," she said impatiently.

"Huh? I didn't say anything about that."

"You said it seven times. Sit down. You're making me nervous."

Len perched on the corner of the table, folded his arms, and
immediately got up to look out the window. On the way back, he circled
the table in an aimless way, picked up a bottle of ink and shook it to
see if the cap was on tight, stumbled over a wastebasket, carefully
up-ended it, and sat down with an air of _Ici je suis, ici je reste_.

"Nothing to worry about," he said firmly. "Women have kids all the
time."

"True."

"What for?" he demanded violently.

Moira grinned at him, then winced slightly and looked at the clock.
"Eighteen minutes this time. They're getting closer."

When she relaxed, Len put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it in
only two tries. "How's Leo taking i