ver.

She was turned slightly away from Malone, and had obviously not heard
him come in. Malone wondered how best to announce himself, and
regretfully gave up the idea of tiptoeing up to the girl, placing his
hands over her eyes, kissing the back of her neck and crying:
"Surprise!" It was elegant, he felt, but it just wasn't _right_.

He compromised at last on the old established method of
throat-clearing to attract her attention. He was sure he could take it
from there, to an eminently satisfying conclusion.

He tiptoed on the deep-pile rug right up to her desk. He took a deep
breath.

And the expected happened.

He sneezed.

The sneeze was loud and long, and it echoed through the room and
throughout the corridors. It sounded to Malone like the blast of a
small bomb, or possibly a grenade. Startled himself by the volume of
sound he had managed to generate, he jumped back.

The girl had jumped, too, but her leap had been straight upward, about
an inch and a half. She came down on her chair and reached up a hand.
The hand wiped the back of her neck with a slow, lingering motion of
complete loathing. Then, equally slowly, she turned.

"That," she said in a low, sweet voice, "was a hell of a dirty trick."

"It was an accident," Malone said. "The Will of God."

"God has an exceedingly nasty mind," the girl said. "Something, by the
way, which I have often suspected." She regarded Malone darkly. "Do
you always do that to strangers? Is it some new sort of perversion?"

"I have never done such a thing before," Malone said sternly.

"Oh," the girl said. "An experimenter. Avid for new sensations.
Probably a jaded scion of a rich New York family." She paused. "Tell
me," she said, "is it fun?"

Malone opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shut it, thought for
a second and then tried again. He got as far as: "I--" before Nemesis
overtook him. The second sneeze was even louder and more powerful than
the first had been.

"It must be fun," the girl said acidly, producing a handkerchief from
somewhere and going to work on her face. "You just can't seem to wait
to do it again. Would it do any good to tell you that the fascination
with this form of greeting is not universal? Or don't you care?"

"Damn it," Malone said, goaded, "I've got a cold."

"And you feel you should share it with the world," the girl said. "I
quite understand. Tell me, is there anything I can do for you? Or has
your mission been accomplished?