"How do you do?" said she, pleasantly, as I materialized at her side.
"I am as well as a person can be," I replied, rubbing my eyes in
confusion, "who suddenly finds himself two hundred and fifty miles
away from the spot where, a half-hour before, he had lain down to
rest."
Miss Andrews laughed. "You see how it is yourself," she said.
"See how what is myself?" I queried.
"To be the puppet of a person who--writes," she answered.
"And have I become that?" I asked.
"You have," she smiled. "That's why you are here."
The idea made me nervous, and I pinched my arm to see whether I was
there or not. The result was not altogether reassuring. I never
felt the pinch, and, try as I would, I couldn't make myself feel it.
"Excuse me," I said, "for deviating a moment from the matter in hand,
but have you a hat-pin?"
"No," she answered; "but I have a brooch, if that will serve your
purpose. What do you want it for?"
"I wish to run it into my arm for a moment," I explained.
"It won't help you any," she answered, smiling divinely.
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