"Tir—" he began, then stopped. No, the man confronting him from the sill was not Tiridat Ariminian. He looked like him in feature and figure, but was younger, clean-shaven, and dressed in a clean pale-green suit cut like pajamas instead of wearing the foreman's dirty sheepskins and kalpak.
"Come awn, Arthur," cried the apparition in a natural if hurried manner. "Mah goodness sakes, you'll make us both late for patron call!" The hillbilly accent reminded Finch of his home state.
"But—"
"Hurra up! You ought to be right down grateful to me. Hain't nobody else in Strawberry House would wake you up like this."
The urgency of the visitor's delivery overbore Finch's impulse to argue. He pulled on the clothes that lay across a chair, fumbling a bit with unfamiliar buttons and ties, and followed the pseudo-Tiridat at almost a trot down the corridor.
There was a carpet on the floor and numbered doors along both sides. Clearly a dream of some kind of hotel. There were a few other passengers, also hurrying; some of them nodded in an abstracted manner. All wore the pajama suits in different pastel shades.
The hurrying throng went up one flight of stairs, then another, with Finch comparing this to "Alice in Wonderland" and speculating on when he would begin changing size. At the second landing the crowd sorted itself into groups which streamed away through doorways on halls that led off the landing. Instead of numbers these doors bore names: "Wilkinsn," "Kouts," "Banistr," and so on, in big metal letters. Phonetic spelling, apparently. Pseudo-Tiridat plunged into a door marked "Orindj."
Finch found himself in a large room with a cushioned bench running clear around the wall. On this bench sat a miscellaneous collection of men, eating breakfast from small tables in front of them. At the far side was another door, with a cue of men extending through it. Finch's companion promptly took his place at the end of the line, and Finch himself, seeing nothing better to do, followed suit. A few of the eaters called out: "Hi!" "Morning, Arthur." "'Lo, Terry," "Late again? Must have been a big night."
More to test the impression than anything else, Finch remarked: "That dream-stone of yours is certainly a hard worker. I never dreamed that the smell of bacon made me hungry before."
Pseudo-Tiridat—Terry, to judge from the greetings— turned a blank face toward him. "Huh? What dream-stone? Lord have mercy, Arthur, you do say the unreasonablest things. I s'pose that's the way it is with honest-to-goodness poets."
"What—why—" Finch began, wondering how poetry had mingled with Tiridat in his dreams. He tried a new tack: "Say, the service in this cafeteria is about as snappy as life in Ogygia."
Another blank look. "For a client," observed Terry, "you sure have nerve enough to do a ski-jump blindfolded. And ef you put that there crack in a limerick, I want a commission."
No sale. The line shortened slowly. Presently he followed Terry into a smaller room, smelling strongly of food. At one side, breakfasts on trays were being handed across a counter, but before receiving them, each of the men waiting in line went into another door at the far side and then came out. Terry preceded him and reappeared almost immediately.
Finch was evidently next. He pushed the door open and entered what seemed to be an office, with a bald, turtle-beaked man of about Finch's own age sitting behind a dark wood desk Without greeting, this person said: "Last again, Finch. Do youse want to be hauled up before the Politician for laziness?" When Finch did not reply, Turtle-beak tossed a bill on the desk. "I'll pass it this time. Youse will have a sonnet in honor of Orange Amaranth Mrs. in time for the orgy tonight. Here's your advance."
Finch chuckled. "Did you say you wanted me to compose a sonnet, for this?" He picked up the bill.
The man's reaction was curious; his lips tightened red ran right up his wattles. He seemed to have some difficulty in getting out the next sentence: "Really, Finch, I must say, that's carrying professional license a little too far. Youse had better not do it in public,"
"What is?"
"Why, talking as though Finch Arthur Poet had the same status as Orange William Banker."
"What do you mean? I never said a word about anybody's status."
"Youse did! Don't give me that! Now youse are doing it again—inflecting for equality. I don't care if youse are a poet; I'm not going to have it get around that my clients don't know elementary etiquette."
"You'd better go back to the beginning and explain, Mr. Banker," said Finch. "When I get to dreaming things, I sometimes forget."
The man's eyes seemed about to pop from their sockets. "Youse fool! Do youse want me to send youse up before the Psychologic Board for irrational behavior? My name is Orange. Do youse want me to call youse Mr. Poet?"
"Oh," said Finch, humbly, and with the back of his mind remembering that in dreams an outburst like this was usually a prelude to a pursuit. "Excuse me. It's like being Chinese; but if you'll just explain, Mr. Orange, or Orange Mr.—"
"If thou will explain, youse irrational half-wit!"
Pursuit or no pursuit, the adrenal glands began to deliver their product into Finch's blood-stream. "My dear sir," he said: "I have endeavored to be courteous to you —or thou, even if thou are a figment of my subconscious imagination, but since it doesn't produce the smallest approach to common courtesy, I've had enough. I'm going to get out of this dream."
He reached over to the desk, picked up the stone paper-weight on it, and banged himself on the top of the head—hard. Nothing happened except that he saw stars.
Orange's face had lost its fury and the banker was watching with a kind of horrified fascination. In a changed voice, he asked: "How are youse feeling, Finch?"
Finch staggered one step and smiled wryly. "About as well as could be expected of a man who's just had a tap on the head, and rather hungry."
"Can youse still make rhymes? What rhymes with 'plague'?"
"Haig and Haig," said Finch briskly. "I could do with some right now, even if it is before breakfast. This is getting me down."
"What rhymes with 'fugue?'"
"That's a wicked one. Let's see—'toug.'"
"What's that? Don't believe there is such a word."
"Oh, yes there is. They've got a flock of them on display in the museum in Istanbul. If you doubt it, go take a look."
"How do youse know?"
"I saw them there a couple of months ago," said Finch.
Orange narrowed his eyes and his face became a trifle grim. "A couple of months ago youse were right here in Strawberry House, Kentucky, grinding out lousy poems to justify your existence. I don't think youse are dangerous, but youse have a seizure all right,"
Finch shrugged. "Okay, then say I journeyed to Istanbul in my imagination. But I still say they have tougs in the museum there."
The banker eyed him coldly. "All right. Youse are still acting erratic, but if youse can rhyme, I'll forget it and call it creative temperament, I want that sonnet for the orgy."
"Very well," said Finch. "Let's assume I'm just a little eccentric, eh? Now if thou will just tell me whattest thou wantest, so I can get some breakfast, I'll be much obliged."
"I have told youse about four times already, I want the usual eulogistic sonnet, to be given by me at the orgy. Last word is the name of the person honored; in this case my wife Amaranth. That's all been settled long ago."
"How the devil am I to rhyme anything with Orange? It's the one word in English that won't rhyme."
The banker shrugged. "That's your problem, Finch. You're the poet, not me. Use 'Amaranth' if you wish, but no more dopey rhymes on it like 'gum tragacanth.' One of those was enough. Dismiss."
The breakfast was somewhat chilled but not half bad, Finch decided, as he took his place beside the man called Terry, who was dawdling over his second cup of coffee. This custom of early-morning calls on a patron—hmm, the early Roman Empire, or perhaps the late republic .. .