“A bit of ice too, don’t forget!”
The waiter’s head peeped round the corner, and from the movement of his lips I gathered he repeated the remark about the bit of ice.
“I did say ‘dry’?” my friend asked, looking anxiously at me; “didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“And a bit of lemon?”
“And a slice of lemon.”
“And what are you going to have, then? Upon my word, old man, I forgot to ask you.” He looked so distressed that it was impossible to show impatience.
“Nothing, thanks. You asked me, you know.”
A pause fell between us. I gave it up. He would talk when he wanted to, but there was no forcing him. It struck me suddenly that he had a rather fagged and weary look for a man who had been spending several weeks at a mountain inn with work he loved. The pity and affection his presence always wakes in me ran a neck-and-neck race. At that “centre” of his, I knew full well, he was ever devising plans for the helping of others, quite as much as creating those remarkable things that issued periodically, illunderstood by a sensation-loving public, from the press. A sharp telepathic suspicion flashed through my mind, but before there was time to give it expression in words, up came the waiter with a long glass of ginger ale fizzing on a tray.
He handed it to my vague friend, and my vague friend took it and handed it to me.