PROCRASTINATION
There was money in his lodgings, in the Chippendale escritoire; but to get it he would have to run the gauntlet of reporters and detectives which had already dismayed him in prospect. O'Hagan—ah!
At the head of his bed was a telephone. Impulsively, inconsiderate of the hour, he turned to it.
"Give me Nine-o-eight-nine Madison, please," he said; and waited, receiver to ear.
There was a slight pause; a buzz; the voice of the switchboard operator below stairs repeating the number to Central; Central's appropriately mechanical reiteration; another buzz; a silence; a prolonged buzz; and again the sounding silence. …
"Hello!" he said softly into the transmitter, at a venture.
No answer.
"Hello!"
Then Central, irritably: "Go ahead. You've got your party."
"Hello, hello!"
A faint hum of voices, rising and falling, beat against the walls of his understanding. Were the
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