He began to grin, finding this little comedy amusing as well as mysterious.
“Sure thing, boss! And seeing that it’s you and your orders,’ here’s five dollars for your friends on top of the twenty-two. Go and buy five dollars’ worth of corned beef and eat your heads off! Nothing like going the limit when you come down to the big burg!”
I gave Mr. Dawlin a knowing look when I turned to leave.
“My friends are much obliged for the extra five—but they can use it for something else besides eats. Come on, gentlemen! You will be my guests at dinner.”
I could see by Dawlin’s face that he took that last as a straight tip from me that I had designs on the countrymen—and that he would understand why I was quitting my job for a time. He gave me a most benignant smile when I left.
Professor Jewelle smirked and bowed when we passed him.
Big Mike, the ogre of the place, stepped politely to one side and twisted his ugly mug into a one-sided grin of apology.
So we went out in state.
There was a new feeling in me. It was a longing to be with those boys from home. Up to then I had been ashamed to meet anybody from Levant. And out of that shame had come a sort of dread to hear any news from my old town. Now I was hungry for news.
To be sure, just at that moment I was in a fool’s paradise of spurious importance. It was comforting, however, to be set on a pedestal by those Sortwell boys, and to know that at least two persons from Levant had stopped thinking of me as a runaway scalawag.