"How'm I goin' to smoke without a pipe?" says Bill.
"That's so," says Mr. Whelan, an' goes behind the counter an' pulls down a couple o' boxes of brier pipes.
"With a middlin' good hook to the stem, if you don't mind," says Bill.
Mr. Whelan passes over the best make of French brier. Bill held it up. "She looks all right." He put it between his teeth. "An' she feels all right." He sticks it into his shirt. "An' I guess she'll smoke all right." He steps to the door an' picks up the old coat. "What good it done him to wipe his feet on my coat, I dunno," he says. Then he turns back.
"About Wallie, Mr. Whelan?"
"Why, Bill," says Mr. Whelan, "when he gets back from school of course he'll get down the chart to look up all those countries you passed on the way back from Yunzano, and o' course we'll have to make a correction or two in your jography."
"O' course," says Bill. "I useder have a good mem'ry once, but"—he taps his head—"gettin' old, gettin' old, Mr. Whelan. That coat now—it sure did look like the cut o' the coat I used to wear on the Tropic Zone. And the pipe!" an' old Bill gazes mournful-like across East River to Brooklyn, an' turns again an' says: "A good boy, your boy, Mr. Whelan—no evil suspicions o' people in his heart. An', as my old capt'n o' the Tropic Zone useder quote fr'm the Bible to me: 'It's they shall inherit all there is that's wuth inheritin'.'"
An' then Bill heaved another sigh, and put on his old coat, an' went shufflin' up South Street, on the side away from Spiegel's.