Three Speeds Forward
amounted to anything, he would stop right there talking about it.
"Don't make it impossible for me to accept a favor from you," I went on. "Things like that sandbag a conversation and make one self-conscious, and put one on one's guard. You will force me to adopt a freezing manner, and protect myself as best I can. Don't you think that would be rather humiliating for both of us?"
Then, of course, being an awfully nice man, he groveled, and acted as though he was awfully grateful at not being killed dead. He begged my pardon over and over again, and got into the transmission to see if it actually was a fracture.
"I'll only ask you one thing before I drop the subject," he said very gravely, "and that is, to do me the honor to believe me."
It made me tingle all over to admit I did, but what was the use of fibbing about it? Besides, to have answered otherwise would have provoked a discussion. I was rather flus-
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