"That's the spirit," he told himself. "Never say die."
Then, realizing he had just said it, he frowned. Perhaps it hadn't really counted. But, then again....
He was on his way down the steps when he hit the girl.
The mutual collision was not catastrophic. On the other hand, it was not exactly minor. It fell somewhere between the two, as an unclassifiable phenomenon of undoubted potency. Malone said: "Oog," with some fervor as the girl collided with his chest and rebounded like a handball striking a wall. Something was happening to her, but Malone had no time to spare to notice just what. He was falling through space, touching a concrete step once in a while, but not long enough to make any real acquaintance with it. It seemed to take him a long time to touch bottom, and when he had, he wondered if _touch_ was quite the word.
_Bottom_ certainly was. He had fallen backward and landed directly on his _glutei maximi_, obeying the law regarding equal and opposite reaction and several other laws involving falling bodies.
His first thought was that he was now neatly balanced. His tail had received the same treatment as his head. He wondered if a person could get concussion of the tail bones, and had reached no definite conclusion when, unexpectedly, his eyes focused again.
He was looking at a girl. That was all he saw at first. She had apparently fallen just as he had, bounced once and sat down rather hard. She was now lying flat on her back, making a sound like "_rrr_" between her teeth.
Malone discovered that he was sitting undignifiedly on the steps. He opened his mouth to say something objectionable, took another look at the girl, and shut it with a snap. This was no ordinary girl.
He smiled at her. She shook her head and sat up, still going "_rrr_." Then she stopped and said, instead: "What do you think--"
"I'm sorry," Malone said in what he hoped was a charming, debonair and apologetic voice. It was quite a lot to get into one voice, but he tried his very hardest. "I just didn't see--"
"You didn't?" the girl said. "If you didn't, you must be completely blind."
Malone noticed with hope that there was no anger in her voice. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get this girl angry at him.