He handed me the nickels and drew off the coffee.
Two or three men were hanging around one of the pinball machines, giving it a good play. I gathered from their conversation they were regulars around the place. The juke box clicked into noise. A feminine voice said, “May I have your attention, please. This song is dedicated to the management.” Then the juke box started playing Way Down Upon the Swanee River.
I took from my pocket the pictures Hale had given me. Just as I tasted the coffee, I gave an exclamation of disgust.
“What’s the matter?” the man behind the counter asked. “Something wrong with the coffee?”
“No,” I said. “Something wrong with the photographs.”
He looked puzzled, but sympathetic.
I said, “The photographer gave me the wrong ones. I wonder where mine are.”
There was no one else at the counter at the moment. The man leaned across the bar, and I casually swung the pictures around so he could take a look.
I said, “I suppose now I’m out of luck. They’ll have mixed the films up, given mine to someone else, and I’ll never see them again.”
“Perhaps they just switched the orders,” he said. “You got this girl’s pictures, and she got yours.”