“Well, actually, we’ve got a problem and we were told . . .”
“See! What did I tell you? All right. What have you got? A standing or a sitting problem? Standing problems I handle for….”
He was off again. In a desperate effort to keep our visit short, I interrupted his pitch.
“We’re looking for a friend who….”
“Say no more! A friend! Just a second!”
With that he vaulted back into his chair, grabbed the top off a strange-looking appliance on his desk, diddled with it briefly, then started talking into it.
“Yea Darwin? Vilhelm. I need … sure….”
Leaning back in his chair, he tucked the gadget under one side of his head and grabbed another.
“This is Vilhelm, Is Kay around? … Well, put her on when she’s done….”
The second gadget slid in under the same ear as the first and he reached for yet another.
“I know I shouldn’t ask this,” I murmured to Massha, “but what’s he doing?”
“Those are telephones,” she whispered back as a fourth instrument came into play. “You talk into one end of it and whoever’s at the other end can hear you and talk back. It beats running all over town to find an answer.”
By this time, the little vampire had so many instruments hung from his shoulders and arms he looked like he was being attacked by a nest of snakes. He seemed to be handling it well, though, talking first into one, then another, apparently keeping multiple conversations going at once like a juggler handles a basket full of balls.
“Gee, that’s kind of neat!” I exclaimed. “Do you think we could get some of these for our place at the Bazaar?”