As they were about to part in the street Mr. Emery said suddenly “Would you care to dine with me and my wife some time?”
“Why ... er ... I’d be delighted.”
“I like to see something of the younger fellows in the profession you understand.... Well I’ll drop you a line.... Some evening next week. It would give us a chance to have a chat.”
Baldwin shook a blueveined hand in a shinystarched cuff and went off down Maiden Lane hustling with a springy step through the noon crowd. On Pearl Street he climbed a steep flight of black stairs that smelt of roasting coffee and knocked on a groundglass door.
“Come in,” shouted a bass voice. A swarthy man lanky in his shirtsleeves strode forward to meet him. “Hello
George, thought you were never comin’. I’m hongry as hell.”
“Phil I’m going to set you up to the best lunch you ever ate in your life.”
“Well I’m juss waitin’ to be set.”
Phil Sandbourne put on his coat, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the corner of a draftingtable, and shouted into a dark inner office, “Goin out to eat, Mr. Specker.”
“All right go ahead,” replied a goaty quavering from the inner office.