The MacGuffin by Stanley Elkin Page B

said, and in minutes they were there. Then came around, opened the door for Druff’s lovely passenger. “Mademoiselle,” he said, inviting her into the world, a faint smarm on his middleman’s lips, and would have closed the door on his boss had not that frail, feeble old man pulled something out of his buried old alacrity reserves and reached the pavement at almost the same moment Miss Glorio did.
    “Wait for me,” he told his chauffeur and grasped the lady’s arm, drawing her apart from the entrance to her office building. “Will you be my mistress?” he asked her suddenly.
    “What? No, of course not. I don’t know you. You’re old, you’re crazy. You’re married, you’re not a sharp dresser. What do you mean, will I be your mistress? My share of that check came to just over five dollars. Tell me the truth, are you really a public servant? I mean I saw the seal on the side of that ridiculous car, but maybe that’s what people are into nowadays, renting police cars, fire trucks, limousines with official- looking seals. So yes or no, are you the street commissioner? Because if you are, I’ll tell you something, mister, it’s the decline and fall all over again. No, I won’t be your mistress! I never heard anything so nuts.” She was furious with him, not actually shouting, too furious for rage, and Druff took advantage of what was still a lull in the noise levels to ask his question a second time. “Do I look hard up?” she demanded. Druff turned and waved Dick back into the car. “Look, I’m no spring chicken, I admit it, but I’m probably twenty years your junior.”
    “Fourteen,” Druff said.
    “Fourteen, right. I stand corrected. Fourteen. How could you, how could you? Do I, do I?”
    “Do you what?”
    “Look hard up?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Because I’m not. I do okay. I have a job that takes me all over the world. My passport has stamps in it from the four corners. I meet men. Even married men. Where do you get off? You don’t even know me. I certainly don’t know you.”
    “Ah,” Druff said.
    “What?”
    “Just listen to what I’m suggesting. You don’t know me. I intend to do the right thing.”
    “The right thing,” she said.
    “Wait,” he said, “hear me out. Give a guy his day in court a minute. Hear me out. Didn’t I hear you out when you said I was old and crazy and that I’m just a little married nutso old slob who doesn’t know how to dress? Didn’t I listen patiently to your side of the story when you questioned my credentials as a civil servant and stuck an additional half dozen years onto my age and called an official, bona fide limousine of this city a ridiculous gimmick and accused me by veiled allusion of trying to buy you for an outlay of something less than six bucks? Well, didn’t I? Fair’s fair.”
    “Fair’s certainly fair. You sure did.”
    “All right,” he said, “here’s the story. I won’t try to kid you. I am old, I am married. And I know my clothes hang on me. Even expensive Brooks Brothers. To tell the truth, I dress above my station, and would probably look better in open hospital gowns than I do in street clothes, but I’m City Commissioner of Streets all right and the limo’s legit. That’s the absolute truth, a matter of public record. You could look it up.
    “Listen,” Margaret Glorio said, checking her watch and edging toward the entrance of the office building, “this is ridiculous.”
    “Is it?” Druff said. “I hope not. I hate looking foolish and haven’t much patience with loonies or even time to be silly. I’m not physically attractive but I’m not a particularly stupid man. I don’t look it, I know, but I’m something of a man’s man, actually. Men enjoy my company, I mean, and from what I understand that’s supposed to be a plus with the ladies.”
    “You’re annoying me.”
    “All right,” Druff said, “forget all that. You’re a busy person and none of this is part of my pitch