Skippy went on with the making of the coffee, mechanically. “I can’t understand ’bout the note, Nickie,” he said for the hundredth time. “If Mr. Conne got it they oughta been here—gee whiz, last week. Even before.”
And for the hundredth time Nickie said consolingly, “The old lady mighta lost her pocketbook in the river or sump’n, hah?” Then, after a pause: “What a break for Frost just when he was doin’ us a good turn! Ain’t that Fate, hah? Things just ain’t right in this world.”
“Listen, Nick, it’s a shame about Frost an’ I’m plenty thankful what he did for us—or what he tried to do. But gee whiz, he hadn’t no lily-white soul to team up with Devlin, did he? He was used to rough stuff—a hold-up man, that’s what he was. Well, he had a gun when he met Devlin an’ he coulda made him go to the cops right that night. Gee, Frost might not been’s heartless as Devlin, but he stood for Devlin’s stuff. And that’s as bad.”
Nickie agreed. He had seemed to brighten up during Skippy’s moral talk and was sniffing the air. “Holy Smoke!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Even his rotten coffee smells like food now.”
Skippy smiled wanly. “Thought you wasn’t hungry. Thought you was sick?”
“Guess I ain’t, hah? Since I smelled that I wanta eat.”
“Eat—that’s right. While we live we gotta eat—gee whiz, what a life!”
“Don’t talk like that, Skip. Just talk about eatin’ while we can. I’ll open some beans an’ I’ll fry some ba....”
“Oh, not bacon!”
“Meat’ll give us strength.”