The day was dark from the outset, and a California fog crept everywhere. It had followed Pat in his headlong, hatless flight across the city. His destination, his refuge, was the studio, where he was not employed but which had been home to him for twenty years.

Was it his imagination or did the policeman at the gate give him and his pass an especially long look? It might be the lack of a hat — Hollywood was full of hatless men but Pat felt marked, especially as there had been no opportunity to part his thin grey hair.

In the Writers’ Building he went into the lavatory. Then he remembered: by some inspired ukase from above, all mirrors had been removed from the Writers’ Building a year ago.

Across the hall he saw Bee McIlvaine’s door ajar, and discerned her plump person.

‘Bee, can you loan me your compact box?’ he asked.

Bee looked at him suspiciously, then frowned and dug it from her purse.

‘You on the lot?’ she inquired.

‘Will be next week,’ he prophesied. He put the compact on her desk and bent over it with his comb. ‘Why won’t they put mirrors back in the johnnies? Do they think writers would look at themselves all day?’

‘Remember when they took out the couches?’ said Bee. &lsqu............