“Yaes.”
“Not like this.”
“Yes, just all same like that one.”
And then Stone, with his almost hypnotic power of suggestion, so hinted and insinuated and urged, that finally Kito, after a short search in a closet, triumphantly showed a pencil-sharpener exactly like the one Stone had offered.
Looking chagrined and disappointed, Stone returned his to his bag.
“Why did your master stop using it?” he asked, noting the pencil on the desk tray, undoubtedly sharpened with a knife.
“Two, four weeks, mebbe more.”
“But when?” and Stone picked up a calendar. “When?”
Slowly tracing back through his memory, Kito suddenly smiled.
“Then!” he exclaimed pointing to a date. “I know, be-cause, the same day almost, my birt’day. An’ I hoped my master give him to me for plesent. But no.”