Tongue tied

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The 24-across clue was " 'The Oblong Box' writer," and the answer was looming just over the hazy horizon of my Friday-morning mind when the man in the Amtrak seat next to me whipped out his cellphone, punched in some numbers, and announced,

"Ed, it's Al."

I looked up from the folded-in-quarters arts section of the Times and said to the back of the seat ahead of me, "Ed, it's Al."

Missing just a fraction of a beat, Al said, "I'm on the train. I'll see Quinn when I get there, and I'm having lunch with Margaret Wills."

While Al listened to Ed's reply, I said, "I'm on the train. I'll see Quinn when I get there, and I'm having lunch with Margaret Wills."

Al peered over at me, and I peered back. Then he told Ed, "Listen, there's a guy in the seat next to me who…"

Like a simultaneous-translation whiz at the UN, I was right behind him. "Listen, there's a guy in the seat next to me who…"

I grinned as I said it, and Al's look of annoyance was turning to apprehension. This would make a good story when he met Quinn and then when he dined with Margaret Wills-"Would you believe, I was sitting next to this prick on the train who…"-but for now it must have been starting to seem to Al that I could be dangerous.

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