"Well?" Matt asked when he saw Rona the next evening. "What'd your boss say?"

"What'd your boss say?" Rona countered. "Did you ask him?"

"Of course! He said I could have the weekend off. No dramas."

"Jesus, I'd hope so" Rona said.

"So your boss said yes?"

"He said: 'Rona, you may take the weekend off; however, know this: I will not pay you for that time. While you are a valued employee of this bookshop, while you unfailingly sell books to people who wish to buy them, which is after all the only thing I truly ask of my employees, you have not been working here long enough to earn such rewards as paid leave.'"

"No, really" Matt insisted, "what'd he say?"

"That's what he said!" Rona protested. "More or less. I've told you before the way he is. He's like some kind of . . . kind of . . . thespian or something."

"What's a thespian?" Matt laughed.

"You know, like, an actor. Only more actorly."

"Right. But he works in a bookshop."

"Maybe he reads a lot of plays" Rona shrugged. "Maybe he wishes he was born in the nineteenth century, and he could just talk with twenty words instead of one all the time."

"Did they talk that way back then?"

"They wrote that way. Haven't you ever read any old books?"

"Not really" Matt confessed. "The language confuses me." He raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. "Maybe your boss is just really boring, so he talks strangely to make himself seem interesting."

"I think he's just a weirdo" Rona said. "And he probably lives by himself."

"But he's a weirdo who gave you the weekend off, at least" Matt pointed out.

"Without pay."

"Were you expecting with pay?"

"No" Rona admitted. "Like I told him: I'm just happy to be getting paid any time. I don't expect to get money for not doing anything."