BOBBY: (with slight but pervading hoarseness from cold) Who! You... You startled me Mr. Smith!! I just was sneaking in to . . . (More angrily now that fright is diminished). You might at least call me Bobby out of respect for my sex!

SMITTY: (Laughing in a superior, tolerant manner) O.K., O.K., but you'd look a little more like a girl if you straightened that wig. Anybody could...

BOBBY: (Muttering softly) Didn't have time and scared me (Bobby adjusts wig, brushes it out distractedly, building a fullness in the square of hair surrounding the face. Eyes only partly visible, face becomingly clouded by that quickie hair-styling. Bobby walks left to behind sofa a little self-consciously.) Now am I a girl? (Switches on floor lamp which sheds a bit more light)

SMITTY: (Watching with a half-smile of bemusement, plopping down in an easy chair. (Well, more believable. But you're swinging your hips too much. A girl would...

BOBBY: (Sharply) How do you know what "a girl would!"

SMITTY: I'm the world's greatest girl-watcher. If I couldn't tell the real thing by this time. . . . But you've done a pretty good put-on. Guess it might fool some. Even maybe it would have fooled me back when we were roommates . . . and I didn't know you had this . . . in- sane compulsion to dress like a girl.

BOBBY: From my viewpoint it'd be nuts for me to dress other- wise. I'm still confused. . . what DOES bring you here!?

SMITTY: Oh that drunken letter last year-guess you felt you had to confess to somebody. And I was a handy long-time-no-see old friend. Did kinda shake me up but first time I had a chance to come this way, had to soft-shoe in to catch you unaware. To believe you did this sort of thing, I guess.

BOBBY: (Darkly) Been doing "this sort of thing ever since I re- member"...

SMITTY: Don't people catch on? I mean that super-sexy way you walk, your fruity gestures, that askew wig, that too-throaty voice?

BOBBY: (protectively) I've got a cold.

89