“Deliver it as ordered,” said Potter, with a boyish smile that got him quicker and better service than other men’s tips.
The waiter obeyed and the boys watched with interest. Potter poured a generous half-pint into the stein upon the ice, and filled the stone mug with soda.
“I’m goin’ to git,” said Jack Eldredge. “Somethin’s goin’ to bust loose around here.”
Potter sat back comfortably and sipped from his stein. He appeared unconscious that, from other tables, glances were directed toward him, and that men standing at the bar mentioned his name and pointed him out to companions. He began chatting pleasantly.
“Not pinched, eh?” asked Randall.
“Suppose I’ll get mine in the morning,” Potter said, without interest.
“I’d ’a’ let her take her medicine,” Randall said. “It wasn’t any of your funeral.... Didn’t even say thank you.”
Potter looked at him musingly. “That was the best part of it,” he said, presently. “Sort of proves she’s being natural; not four-flushing like some of these girls. They’d have burbled and kissed my hand—stepped out of character, you know. She didn’t.”
A boy came into the room with an armful of papers. What he called could not be heard distinctly above the din of the place. Potter raised his hand and the boy threw a paper before him. The young man glanced at it, seemed to stiffen. He sat back in his chair while the others watched him, arrested by something in his manner, something portentous.
He stood up and looked from one to the other of them. Then he laid down the paper slowly.