self.

He sealed them in an envelope and walked out to Miss Mitkin. "Since
Mr. Barth isn't here, we'd better go to lunch in shifts," he said.
"You can go first."

"Thanks." Miss Mitkin languidly took her bag out of the desk drawer
and began to apply makeup.

Burckhardt offered her the envelope. "Drop this in the mail for me,
will you? Uh--wait a minute. I wonder if I ought to phone Mr. Barth to
make sure. Did his wife say whether he was able to take phone calls?"

"Didn't say." Miss Mitkin blotted her lips carefully with a Kleenex.
"Wasn't his wife, anyway. It was his daughter who called and left the
message."

"The kid?" Burckhardt frowned. "I thought she was away at school."

"She called, that's all I know."

Burckhardt went back to his own office and stared distastefully at the
unopened mail on his desk. He didn't like nightmares; they spoiled his
whole day. He should have stayed in bed, like Barth.

* * * * *

A funny thing happened on his way home. There was a disturbance at the
corner where he usually caught his bus--someone was screaming
something about a new kind of deep-freeze--so he walked an extra
block. He saw the bus coming and started to trot. But behind him,
someone was calling his name. He looked over his shoulder; a small
harried-looking man was hurrying toward him.

Burckhardt hesitated, and then recognized him. It was a casual
acquaintance named Swanson. Burckhardt sourly observed that he had
already missed the bus.

He said, "Hello."

Swanson's face was desperately eager. "Burckhardt?" he asked
inquiringly, with an odd intensity. And then he just stood there
silently, watching Burckhardt's face, with a burning eagerness that
dwindled to a faint hope and died to a regret. He was searching for
something, waiting for something, Burckhardt thought. But whatever it
was he wanted, Burckhardt didn't know how to supply it.

Burckhardt coughed and said again, "Hello, Swanson."

Swanson didn't even acknowledge the greeting. He merely sighed a very
deep sigh.

"Nothing doing," he mumbled, apparently to himself. He nodded
abstractedly to Burckhardt and turned away.

Burckhardt watched the slumped shoulders disappear in the crowd. It
was an _odd_ sort of day, he thought, and one he didn't much like.
Things weren't going right.

Riding home on the next bus, he brooded about it. It wasn't anything
terrible or disastrous; it was something out of his experience
e