"Sit down, sit down," Fielding urged, pulling a comfortable leather chair to the side of his desk for Hall, and taking the swivel chair behind the desk for himself. The highly polished desk was bare, except for a calendar pad and a folded red-leather picture frame whose picture faced Fielding.
"I'm in coffee, you see."
Hall glanced up at the certificates and the long table. "I see," he said.
"How was your trip? Not too tiring, I hope? That's the sad thing about planes. Faster than ships, but rather confining."
"It was not too bad," Hall said. "Besides, I stole an hour's cat nap at the hotel while waiting for you to get to town."
"Good for you," Fielding said. "I like a man who can steal an hour's sleep when the spirit so moves him. May I make you some coffee to keep you awake, though?"
"If it's not too much trouble."
The Englishman was already at his coffee table. He took the pipe out of his mouth, pointed with the end of the curved stem at one of the canisters. "I guess we'll mix you a little of that Monte Azul with some of this light roast from the south," he said. "If that doesn't sit well, I have two dozen other roasts you can try."
Hall asked him how good a blend would result from the mixture of Monte Azul, Bogota, and the various Brazilian growths Androtten had described to the Brazilian on the plane.
"Ah," Fielding smiled, "so you know coffees, too?"