“Don’t look now!”
The brown man glanced at Lyman’s white face reflected in the mirror before them.
“It’s all right,” he said. “There aren’t any Mar—”
Lyman gave him a fierce, quick kick under the edge of the bar.
“Shut up! One just came in!”
And then he caught the brown man’s gaze and with elaborate unconcern said, “—so naturally, there was nothing for me to do but climb out on the roof after it. Took me ten minutes to get it down the ladder, and just as we reached the bottom it gave one bound, climbed up my face, sprang from the top of my head, and there it was again on the roof, screaming for me to get it down.”
“What?” the brown man demanded with pardonable curiosity.
“My cat, of course. What did you think? No, never mind, don’t answer that.” Lyman’s face was turned to the brown man’s, but from the corners of his eyes he was watching an invisible progress down the length of the bar toward a booth at the very back.
“Now why did he come in?” he murmured. “I don’t like this. Is he anyone you know?”
“Is who—?”