“Simon Templar, and yours, sir,” the Saint said gravely.
He lifted his own drink and they clinked glasses in solemn ritual, after which James Aloysius McDill demonstrated just how quickly a double bourbon can slide down a human throat. Then he opened his shabby bag, and took out an oblong box of lovingly polished wood.
It was very much like a small table-model radio. A pair of broad-faced dials on its upper surface sported impressive indicator needles. There was a stirrup handle at either end of the box and a sort of sliding scale on top.
“Nice-lookin’ job, ain’t she?” the little man appealed to the Saint.
“Mighty pretty,” responded the Saint, gazing at it as intelligently as he would have surveyed a cyclotron.
The little man beamed. He spoke diffidently to the bartender.
“Got a silver dollar, Frank?”
The bartender obliged, with the air of one who has done this before, and the other customers duplicated his ennui. Once the Saint succumbed to the pitch for a double rye, the show was pretty well routined.
J. Aloysius McDill tossed the silver dollar across the room. It landed in the sawdust on the floor with a dull thump.
“Watch,” he said.