ABSTRACT
Shakespeare McNab waited in the outer office of the Ministry of Home Affairs. His appointment with the Vice-President of the Republic had been for eleven o’clock. The secretary had been unable or unwilling to enlighten him. Shakespeare smiled ingratiatingly whenever she looked up from her typewriter and she ignored him. Shakespeare shifted along the bench to the part that was shaded from the window. Shakespeare stood in the center of the room, a deferential smile firmly in place on his impish features. Shakespeare made his way past the secretary to the door, his features frozen in a paralyzed, lop-sided rictus, exactly as the slap had left them. As Shakespeare remembered precisely what he had broadcast the day before and the implication for his good health, he came to a halt on the corner of Howard and Queen Street.
