~~~

Shakespeare
by Mark Russel Stanley

~~~

Garak glanced across the room. The hazel eyes were quickly averted, but
he caught the ghost of a smile dancing over the apparently impassive
face.

"Julian, do you honestly believe I could miss such obvious
surveillence?"

Innocent eyebrows rose. "Whatever do you mean?"

He restrained a tolerant smile. "It's impossible to read this sickening
stuff at the best of times. How am I expected to concentrate while you
blatantly stare?" He shook his head in mock dismay. "At least be subtle,
my dear."

Julian posed for a moment more as the very picture of innocence, then
grinned openly and returned to his own book. He murmured, as if in an
aside to some invisible audience, "He does do it on purpose."

Garak blinked, reflecting that whatever the human might mean by that, he
wasn't the only one who did things on purpose. Nobody could be this
irritating unintentionally. "Do I?" he laughed.

"You secretly love Shakespeare, and only insult him to cause arguments."

"Read your book, Doctor," Garak sighed.

THE END