"Are you the boss?"
Kenneth Gregory turned from his perusal of a file of letters and faced a young man standing in the doorway. Gregory nodded.
"I'm the owner," he replied pleasantly, noting the well-worn, much-patched service uniform of the stranger. "And for the time being, boss. My manager is sick. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes. You can give me a job."
Gregory smiled at the frankness of the answer.
"I might at that," he said. "Can you speak Russian or Italian?"
The ex-soldier shook his head as Gregory went on:
"What I need more than anything else just now is an interpreter. I have a lot of foreigners working outside cleaning up. I've been having to make signs to them all morning."
The soldier's brow wrinkled.