_Dimly drouse the dreary droves_
Phipps had one eyebrow raised. I lifted the cover plate again.
Quickly.
There I saw a fuzzy thing. It whisked out of sight. I snapped the
plate down and held it down. The party I had been on the night before
hadn't been that good and I had had at least three hours' sleep.
I tried typing again. I got nothing until I started a new line. Then
out came
_Primly prides the privy prose_
I banged up the plate, saw a blur of something slinking down between
the type bar levers again. Whatever it was, it managed to squeeze
itself out of sight in a most amazing way.
"Hey!" I said. "I know you're down there. What's the big idea?"
Fuzzy squeezed his head up from the levers. The head looked like that
of a mouse, but it had teeth like a chipmunk and bright little black
beads for eyes. They looked right at me.
"You go right ahead," he said in a shrill voice. "This is going to be
a great poem. Did you get all that alliteration there in those two
lines?"
"Listen, will you get out of there? I've got work to do!"
"Yes, I think I've hit it at last. It was that four-stress iambic that
did it. It was iambic, wasn't it?"
"Go away," I said miserably.
Fuzzy pulled the rest of himself out of the bars and stood on hind
feet. He crossed his forepaws in front of him, vibrated his long,
furry tail, and said defiantly, "No."
"Look," I pleaded, "I'm not Don Marquis and you're not Archie and I
have work to do. Now will you _please_ get out of this typewriter?"