“Why no, not especially.”
“Could you—could you spare me two or three minutes? Two or three minutes—yes, yes? Come up to my room, could you—could you, Al?”
“Yes indeed. But what is it, Labe?”
“I want to talk. Want to talk, I do. Yes, yes, yes. Saw you go by and I've been waitin' for you. Waitin'—yes, I have—yes.”
He seized his assistant by the arm and led him across the road toward the shoe store. Albert felt the hand on his arm tremble violently.
“Are you cold, Labe?” he asked. “What makes you shiver so?”
“Eh? Cold? No, I ain't cold—no, no, no. Come, Al, come.”
Albert sniffed suspiciously, but no odor of alcohol rewarded the sniff. Neither was there any perfume of peppermint, Mr. Keeler's transparent camouflage at a vacation's beginning. And Laban was not humming the refrain glorifying his “darling hanky-panky.” Apparently he had not yet embarked upon the spree which Captain Lote had pronounced imminent. But why did he behave so queerly?
“I ain't the way you think, Al,” declared the little man, divining his thought. “I'm just kind of shaky and nervous, that's all. That's all, that's all, that's all. Yes, yes. Come, come! COME!”
The last “come” burst from him in an agony of impatience. Albert hastened up the narrow stairs, Laban leading the way. The latter fumbled with a key, his companion heard it rattling against the keyhole plate. Then the door opened. There was a lamp, its wick turned low, burning upon the table in the room. Mr. Keeler turned it up, making a trembly job of the turning. Albert looked about him; he had never been in that room before.