Dave took a look and came back.
"Shall we wake him up? I can take him to the office and get some of
my minions looking for his wench. Private dicks, too. They won't find
her. They couldn't find a luminous memorandum in a two-drawer filing
cabinet. But it might wear him down a little."
"Let him sleep, for now."
Dave sat down. "This is swell! Send for a barrel of iced tea, will
you--with a clear gin on the side? I had a hard night last night.
A bunch of the super-big-shots came in on the Super-Chief and the
Super-Century last night. Things in Hollywood are so bad that two of
them stayed sober the whole damned evening."
I phoned Room Service. "There's a depraved guest of mine up here who
wants some neat gin and a lot of iced tea--"
Dave had picked up one of my ashtrays and was looking at it intently.
When I hung up he said, "Depraved? Depraved, you say? Me? Don't I
detect not just one, but two colors of lipstick here?"
"Callers from the other rooms," I answered. "Came in to consult the
oracle."
"Depraved," he repeated. "That's the trouble with you Gentiles. Two
rules for everything. 'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.'
But--'Let not thy left hand know what thy right doeth.' Something of
that sort. So you reconcile the pair by going around plucking out other
people's right eyes; and not letting your open hand know the other is
gouging. Consulting the oracle! What a phrasemaker!"