I hung up and stormed to the door, my foot itching to bury itself in the southern exposure of a salesman facing north. I flung it open, yelled,
"No, I don't want some! Go peddle your damn junk somewhere else—"
And then my jaw hit the top button of my vest.
"Hank!"
"Hyah, Jim!" said Horse-sense Hank.
Big as life and twice as natural. There's only one Horse-sense Hank Cleaver. When they poured him, they laughed so hard they dropped the mold and broke it. Tall and gangly, so thin of cheek that the cud which constantly caresses his bicuspids sticks out like a cue-ball; tow-colored ravelings of hair waving experimentally in all directions; raw-boned of wrist; eyes mild and incurious as those of a heifer—that is my pal, Hank Cleaver.
I clapped him on the back and dragged him, by main force, into my apartment.
"Golly, guy, I'm glad to see you! You're looking a million. Do you know, I've been slaving like a census-taker to find you? I've called Westville, and—"
"I figgered," said Hank mildly, "as how you might be."