Daily puzzle

Put The Catbird Seat back in order

Seven beats from our edition of The Catbird Seat by James Thurber, shuffled. Drag them, or use the arrows, until the story runs straight. No account, no streak to lose.

  1. The precise man Martin is introduced as a model of restraint, a nondrinker and nonsmoker whose filing department runs like clockwork after twenty-two years of service.
  2. The disrupter arrives Ulgine Barrows, hired as a special adviser, charms the company president and begins dismantling departments with her aggressive efficiency schemes.
  3. Verdict reached Convinced his department is next, Martin reviews her offenses like evidence in a trial and reaches the cold conclusion that she must be removed.
  4. Into her apartment Under a pretext, Martin visits Barrows at home intending to kill her, but realizes the plan is unworkable and improvises something better on the spot.
  5. The false confession He drinks, smokes, and claims he will harm the president and blow up the firm, behaving so monstrously that Barrows is stunned.
  6. The report backfires Barrows denounces him the next day, but her story of the placid Mr. Martin gone berserk strikes everyone as evidence of her own breakdown.
  7. Order restored Barrows is fired and escorted out while Martin, vindicated and unsuspected, slips back into his unchanged routine.