His effort was rewarded, for a little later, as a small box was being wheeled past him, he spied, at the same moment that Mr. Easterly caught it, the name Roukas on the box.
“Put that box with that sack,” directed the customs agent.
A few moments later the noon whistles blew. The stevedores quit work.
“I have to be back at the office at one o’clock, sure,” said Willie. There was an appealing look in his eyes.
Mr. Easterly laughed. He had taken a fancy to the lad. “I see you are a diplomat,” he said. “You know how to say one thing when you mean another.”
“If that’s being a diplomat,” Willie confessed, “then I am a diplomat. I see I might as well be out-and-out with you. Would it be possible to see what’s in those packages before I have to go?”
“You know what Shakespeare says,” quoted Mr. Easterly. “‘All things come to him who waits.’ You have been waiting long enough. We’ll just have a look at these things. It won’t take more than a minute.”
A hatchet was obtained and the lid ripped off the box. Inside were two dozen cans of pistachio-nuts. Eagerly Willie lifted out a can.
“What shall we empty it into?” he asked.
“Just wait a moment,” said Mr. Easterly. “We may not have to empty it. We’ll first see if the cans feel alike.”