"Golly, Sandy, we forgot to eat. And we haven't eaten for two days." And to himself he said, This'll be our last meal, the last we'll ever have.
He took the pup in his arms and Sandy followed. He spied a huge sign not far away—Cafe Royale. It was a magnificent restaurant, the carpeted, canopied entrance reminding him of the front of a sultan's palace. Three days ago—if he'd been foolish enough to come to the City then—he'd have rushed past it with his hand protecting his pocketbook, hardly daring to look within lest the stiff-shirted, high-chinned waiters and patrons think him a country bumpkin.
But now—well, why not?
He ambled through the vast dining hall with its multitude of white-clothed tables, its potted palms, its modernistic, chromium bar. The high walls were decorated with soft-hued, multi-colored murals depicting the rise of Western Civilization—first, the pioneers, the cowboys, then a factory scene and a war scene, and finally a group of spacemen entering a moon-bound rocket.
Martin made a wheezing sound of admiration. "What a place, eh, Sandy? We should have come here a long time ago."
Then he spied the juke box. "There's one of them music machines—and it's lit up. Reckon the power's still on."
Martin had always wanted to play a juke box, but nickels, back home, were scarce. He pursed his lips. "Why not, Sandy? Nickels don't mean much now, and if this is going to be our last meal, we might as well enjoy it."
He inserted a quarter, and after a few moments of pushing this and that button, music played. It was "Song of The Stars," the latest hit, vibrant, full, rhythmic—not at all like the screeching from the second-hand video he'd owned once.
While he listened, he strode to the bar. Not that he was a drinking man. He occasionally had a cold beer on Saturday evening; that was all. But now, with that dazzling array of bottles glittering before him—"Nobody'll miss it now," he told Sandy.
He poured himself three fingers of Scotch and downed it thirstily. "Ahhhh! Been a long time since I had anything like that. Now let's see what's in that kitchen."