matter of fact, he barely restrained
himself from putting a "Sir" before his name.

The girl's brown eyes widened just a trifle. Malone felt as if he
could have fallen into them and drowned. "Oh, my," she said. "You must
be a detective." And then, like the merest afterthought, "My name's
Dorothy."

_Dorothy._ It was a beautiful name. It made Malone feel all choked up
inside. He blinked at the girl and tried to look manly and wonderful.
It was an effort, but he nearly carried it off.

After a second or two he realized that she had asked him a question.
He didn't want to disillusion her in any way, and, after all, an FBI
agent was a kind of detective, but he thought it was only fair that
she should know the whole truth about him right from the start.

"Not exactly a detective," he said.

"Not exactly?" she said, looking puzzled. She looked positively
glorious when puzzled, Malone decided at once.

"That is," he said carefully, "I do detect, but not for the city of
New York."

"Oh," she said. "A private eye. Is that right?"

"Well," Malone said, "no." She looked even more puzzled.

Malone hastened to explain before he got to the point where
conversation was impossible.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said. After a second he thought
of a clarification and added, "FBI."

"Oh," the girl said. _"Oh."_

"But you can call me Ken," Malone said.

"All right--Ken," she said. "And you call me Dorothy."

"Sure," he said. He tried it out. "Dorothy." It felt swell.

"Well," she said after a second.

"Oh," Malone said. "Were you looking for a detective? Because if I can
help in any way--"

"Not exactly," Dorothy said. "Just a little routine business. I'll go
on in and--"

Malone suddenly found himself talking without having any idea why he'd
started, or what he was going to say. At first he said, "Urr," as if
the machine were warming up, and this stopped Dorothy and caused her
to give him a rather sharp, baffled stare. Then he found some words
and used them hurriedly, before they got away.

"Dorothy," he said, "would you like to take in a show this evening? I
think I can get tickets to--well, I guess I could get tickets to
almost anything, if I really tried." His expression attempted to leave
no doubt that he would really try.

Dorothy appeared to consider for a moment. "Well," she said at last,
"how about _The Hot Seat_?"

Malone felt just the way he had several years before when he had
bluffed his w