The man named Max didn't blush.

  He'd brought a whole box of them. 

  They'd sat the woman into a pleather wingback chair on one.  "Oh dear." Someone straightened her special skirtkilt over "knobby knees on the old girl".  "Have I passed that much air?" Sharp as a tack, that's your Indian name m'am, trying to see the coming and going.  People bodily blocking the view.  Mothball late winter blazers.  "Why cahn't I?"  

  "It's whahT. ah happened," spittle on the "tee", "And you being the most educated doctor hopefully must, absolutely Must, explain the situation to huh."  A wince of non-smokers lips at the pinch of a tet-in-us shot.  "Am I bleeding like a stuck elephant?"  Not a tsk but a grunt and one little pat of a no, of course not.