On the morning of the third day, Sara called me on the intercom and told me there was another Army lieutenant in her office, and another charac ... another gentleman. I opened my door and went out to Sara's office to greet them. My first glimpse told me Sara had been right the first time. He was a character.
The new lieutenant was no more than the standard output from the same production line as Lieutenant Murphy, but the wizened little old man he had in tow was from a different and much rarer matrix. As fast as I had moved, I was none too soon. The character reached over and tilted up Sara's chin as I was coming through the door.
"Now you're a healthy young wench," he said with a leer. "What are you doing tonight, baby?" The guy was at least eighty years old.
"Hey, you, pop!" I exclaimed in anger. "Be your age!"
He turned around and looked me up and down.
"I'm younger, that way, than you are, right now!" he snapped.
A disturbance in the outer office kept me from thinking up a retort. There were some subdued screams, some scuffling of heavy shoes, the sounds of some running feet as applicants got away. The outer door to Sara's office was flung open.
Framed in the doorway, breast high, floated the Swami!
He was sitting, cross-legged, on a hotel bathmat. From both front corners, where they had been attached by loops of twine, there peeked Auerbach cylinders. Two more rear cylinders were grasped in Lieutenant Murphy's strong hands. He was propelling the Swami along, mid air, in Atlantic City Boardwalk style.
The Swami looked down at us with aloof disdain, then his eyes focused on the old man. His glance wavered; he threw a startled and fearful look at the cylinders holding up his bathmat. They did not fall. A vast relief overspread his face, and he drew himself erect with more disdain than ever. The old man was not so aloof.
"Harry Glotz!" he exclaimed. "Why you ... you faker! What are you doing in that getup?"
The Swami took a casual turn about the room, leaning to one side on his magic carpet as if banking an airplane.
"Peasant!" He spat the word out and motioned grandly toward the door. Lieutenant Murphy pushed him through.
"Why, that no good bum!" the old man shouted at me. "That no-good from nowhere! I'll fix him! Thinks he's something, does he? I'll show him! Anything he can do I can do better!"