"Mr. Oak? But you weren't expected until tomorrow."
"Fine. I'm early. Let me talk to Ravenhurst."
"But Mr. Ravenhurst wasn't expecting you to--"
I got all-of-a-sudden exasperated. "Unless your instruments are
running on secondhand flashlight batteries, you've known I was coming
for the past half hour. I followed Ravenhurst's instructions not to
use radio, but he should know I'm here by this time. He told me to
come as fast as possible, and I followed those instructions, too. I
always follow instructions when I'm paid enough.
"Now, I'm here; tell Ravenhurst I want to talk to him, or I'll simply
flit back to Eros, and thank him much for a pretty retainer that
didn't do him any good but gave me a nice profit for my trouble."
"One moment, please," said the voice.
It took about a minute and a half, which was about nine billion
jiffies too long, as far as I was concerned.