"The get-together club—my advisory board."
"I'm on."
"See here, you," said a blunt, biting, deep-chested voice at their side.
"Let me get a look."
Joe turned and met Oscar Heming, delicatessen man, stumpy, bull-necked, with fierce bristling mustache, and clothes much too big for him. He was made a member at once of the Stove Circle.
That same evening Joe went down three steps into a little, low, cigar store, whose gas-blazing atmosphere reeked with raw and damp tobacco. He stepped up to the dusty counter.
"What's your best?"
The proprietor, a wise little owl of a man, with thin black hair, and untidy spade beard, and big round glasses enlarging his big brown eyes, placed a box before him.
"My own make—Underdogs—clear Havana—six cents apiece."
"I like the name. Give me ten. But explain!"
"Well"—Nathan Latsky (for so he proved to be) shrugged his shoulders—"I'm one myself. But—what's in a name?"