The general store was called a supermarket, but it wasn't particularly superior.
I took a seat at the soda fountain and took a beer, politely declining the teen-age clerk's offer of a shot of white lightning from the Pepsi-Cola fountain syrup jug for a quarter.
Behind me were three restaurant tables and one solitary red-upholstered booth. Two men somewhere between forty and sixty sat at the nearest table playing twenty-one.
Over the foam of my stein I saw the old man I had almost run down in the road. He marched through the two-thirds of the building composed of rows of can goods and approached the fat man at the cash register.
"Hello, Professor," the fat man said. "What can we do for you?"
"I'd like to mail a letter," he said in an urgent voice.
"Sure, Professor, I'll send it right off on the facsimile machine as soon as I get a free moment."
"You're sure you can send it? Right away?"
"Positive. Ten cents, Professor."