“Okay,” Bertha said.
The blind man got up, picked up his cane, and, with the tip, explored his way to the door. Abruptly he stopped, turned, and said, “I’ve partially retired. If the weather isn’t nice, I won’t be working.”
Chapter II
Bertha Cool glared down at Elsie Brand, taking her indignation out on the stenographer.
“Can you beat that?” she demanded. “The guy pulls open his shirt, unbuttons his pants, and has a money belt wrapped around him that looks like a spare tyre. He opens one of the pockets, pulls out a bunch of bills, and peels off one. It’s a century. I ask him has he got anything smaller, and he says no.”
Elsie Brand seemed to see nothing peculiar about that.
“A guy,” Bertha Cool said, “who sits down on the sidewalk, doesn’t have to pay any rent, has no taxes, no employees, and doesn’t have to make out a lot of social security reports. He has a money belt strapped around him that has a fortune in it. I have to change that hundred, and it takes damn near every cent in my cash box. And then,” and Bertha Cool’s voice rose to a high pitch of emotion, “and then, mind you, he turns around at the door and says that he won’t be working unless the weather is good. I’ve never been able to stay in bed on those cold, rainy mornings — or when there’s a damp, slimy fog. I get out and slosh my way up to the office, splashing around through puddles, getting my ankles soaking wet, and—”
“Yes,” Elsie Brand said, “I do the same thing. Only I have to get here an hour earlier than you do, Mrs. Cool, and if I had to change a hundred-dollar bill, I’d—”
“All right, all right,” Bertha Cool interrupted quickly, sensing that the conversation had turned on dangerous ground, and that Elsie Brand might be going to mention quite casually the high wages that were being paid government stenographers. “Never mind that end of it. Skip it. I just stopped by to tell you that I’m going to be out for a while. I’m going to find a girl who was hurt in an automobile accident.”
“Going to handle it yourself?” Elsie Brand asked.