He said, “You needn’t bother.”
“I guess I’ll hang around. It don’t seem right to go,” George said ponderously, dragging down a lungful of smoke. “It’s long, ain’t it?”
Alfy moved his feet restlessly. He wanted to avoid talking about it. “Listen,” he said, “you don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to say anything about it. If you think for a moment, you’d know that nothing you say could be new to me.”
George looked at him and then shifted his eyes. There was a long pause, then Alfy said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure, that’s all right,” George said hurriedly. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s right. You weren’t thinkin’.”
“Maybe I’d better go,” George said. He sounded so miserable that Alfy couldn’t send him away.
“No, you stay. It’s all right that you stay.”
“Well, I’d like to. I wouldn’t care to be far away in case—”
Alfy winced. This was going to be worse than he thought. He said: “No, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that all right.”