Tete-a-tete

"Mind you, Curdstone, there's something a bit fishy in this Congo biz. Poor old Dag, eh? Good sort, he was."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You notice how it's always the planes with the celebrities aboard that hit the good bye."

"Yeah."

"Carole Lombard, Grace Moore Leslie Howard, Mike Todd . . . "

"Yeah, sure — hey, Charlie — same again."

"Duke of Kent, Buddy Holly . . . Hey, Curdst —"

"Trains, boats, cars, — oh, they all have their accidents, you can't say planes are any worse than the . . . Charlie? One more."

"I see where Yehudi Menuhir swore he wouldn't fly again."

"Ha! It seems he's changed his mind, though. He flew on a [unclear: jey] recently and said he liked it He - he felt good about it — he liked it. He says — says he'll fly again. Double Gllup. And again Gull-llup."

"Yeah."

"Thass right. He liked it Charlie? Over here."

"Yeah. 'Course, he's getting or now."

"Humph."

"Had a long life — done what he wanted — daughter's just married."

"Hmm. Char. — c'mon over here. S - ame again."

"A man like him — well, [unclear: in] doesn't matter so much any more Whereas planes like the U2 — [unclear: oh] there's something wrong in [unclear: a] world where if you can't fly without flooding your engine, missing a wing, breaking a prop. or something — you most likely get picked off by some maintenance fault you know, mechanics having never had it so good and all that — well, if you survive all that there's bound to be some [unclear: political] reason for shooting you down."