Verba became cognisant of a tugging at his coat. An incredibly small, incredibly ragged boy, with some draggled first editions under his arm, had wormed silently in between his legs and was looking up at him with one eye. The boy had only one eye to look with. The other eye was a flattened slit over a sunken socket.
“Mister! Say, Mister!” beseeched the gamin earnestly. “Gimme fi’ cent and I’ll——”
“Hey, you, Blinky!” interposed the barkeeper, bending over the bar to see the small intruder. “Beat it!”
There was a scurrying thud of bare feet on the tiled floor and the wizened intruder magically had vanished between the swinging doors.
“You gents can sit down and wait if you want to,” said the barkeeper. “It’s liable to be a long time though. Or I can tell Old Bird, when he comes in, somebody’s askin’ for him and try to hold him for you. I could phone you even, if it’s important—if you’ll gimme your number.”
“It is important—in a way,” said Verba. “Suppose we do that, Offutt—give the wine clerk our telephone number.”
He laid a coin and a card on the bar. The young man regarded the name and the address on the card briefly.
[224]
“All right!” he said, depositing the coin in his pocket and the card against the mirror at his back. “I won’t forget. The old boy don’t have many people lookin’ for him. Fact is, I don’t remember he ever had anybody lookin’ for him before. Are you gents friends of his? … No? Well, anyhow, I’ll fix it.”
“Funny old sneezer!” he continued. “Dippy a little up here, I guess.”
He tapped himself on the forehead.