Minot dropped to a handy bench, and smiled up into Mr. Trimmer's thin face.
"New York City," he replied.
Mr. Trimmer glanced back at the lights of San Marco, hesitatingly. Then—it was really a cruel temptation—he sat down beside Minot on the bench.
"Do you mean to tell me," he inquired, "that you lived in New York two years ago and didn't hear of Cotrell's Ink Eraser?"
"Such was my unhappy fate," smiled Minot.
"Then you were in Ludlow Street jail, that's all I've got to say," Trimmer replied. "Why, man—what I did for that eraser is famous. I rigged up a big electric sign in Times Square and all night long I had an electric Cotrell's erasing indiscreet sentences—the kind of things people write when they get foolish with their fountain pens—for instance—'I hereby deed to Tottie Footlights all my real and personal property'—and the like. It took the town by storm. Theatrical managers complained that people preferred to stand and look at my sign rather than visit the shows. Can you look me in the eye and say that you never saw that sign?"
"Well," Minot answered, "I begin to remember a little about it now."
"Of course you do." Mr. Trimmer gave him a congratulatory slap on the knee. "And if you think hard, probably you can recall my neat little stunt of the prima donna and the cough drops. I want to tell you about that—"
He spoke with fervor. The story of his brave deeds rose high to shatter the stars apart. A half-hour passed while his picturesque reminiscences flowed on. Mr. Minot sat enraptured—his eyes on the harbor where the Lileth, like a painted ship, graced a painted ocean.
"My boy," Trimmer was saying, "I have made the public stop, look and listen. When I get my last publicity in the shape of an 'In Memoriam' let them run that tag on my headstone. And the story of me that I guess will be told longest after I am gone, is the one about the grape juice that I—"