Now while Staff was receiving this impression, Mr. Iff looked sharply round; their glances crossed. Primarily embarrassed to be caught rudely staring, Staff was next and thoroughly shocked to detect a distinct if momentary eclipse of one of Mr. Iff’s pale blue eyes. Bluntly, openly, deliberately, Mr. Iff winked at Mr. Staff, and then, having accomplished his amazement and discomfiture, returned promptly, twinkling, to the baiting of his clerk.
“Your age, sir?”
Mr. Iff enquired in simple surprise: “Do you really care to know?”
“It’s required, sir, by the—”
“Oh, well—if I must! But, mind you, strictly as man to man: you may write me down a freeborn American citizen, entitled to vote and more ’n half white.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I say, I am an adult—”
“Oh!” The clerk wrote; then, bored, resumed: “Married or single, please?”
“I’m a spinster—”
“O-w?”