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Wilhelmina peered around the door and beheld a small man in a bloodstained white coat about to jump out the window. Or perhaps he wasn't about to jump out the window, as he was standing very, very still.
"Good afternoon, Doctor Hookbill," she said as pleasantly as she could. A look of intense grief crossed the man's face.
"I can't see what's so good about it," he said, pulling an equally bloodstained handkerchief from the pocket of the coat and wiping his shining face with it. "I've just been considering jumping through that window there, as invisibility doesn't appear to be an option."
"Why in the world would you want to jump through a window?" Wilhelmina asked, joining him at the sill and looking down to see the five hundred foot drop. "Especially this one!"
"Oh, I'll do anything to get out of here! The orcs forced me to work here, and I can't stand it! I don't know a thing about Mordorian diseases," he fretted, putting a foot up on the sill.
"Now you wait one minute!" She gave him a smart whack on that foot with her walking stick; he immediately withdrew it. "Young man, you've got too much of your life ahead of you to go jumping out of windows because you're having one bad day in Mordor. What do you think Mordor is all about? You're going to have to grow a tougher skin, Doctor." She closed the window, directed him to his seat, and then sat down across from him.
"See, I'm an old woman. I'm sure there are plenty of things wrong with me, so it shouldn't be hard for you to identify at least one. Don't you worry about a thing."
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