"I'm looking for a notebook I lost here last night," Malone said desperately.
"Oh," the old man said. "Lost and Found. That's different. You come with me."
The old man led Malone in silence to a cave deep in the bowels of the theater, where he went behind a little desk, took up a pencil as if it were a club, held it poised over a sheet of grimy paper, and said, "Name?"
Malone said, "I just want to find a notebook."
"Got to give me your name, youngster," the old man said solemnly.
"It's the rules here."
Malone sighed. "Kenneth Malone," he said. "And my address is—"
The old man, fiercely scribbling, looked up. "Wait a minute, can't you?" he said. "I ain't through 'Kenneth' yet." He wrote on, and finally said, "Address?"
"Hotel New Yorker," Malone said. "In Manhattan?" the old man said.
"That's right," Malone said wearily.
"Ah," the old man said. "Tourist, ain't you? Tourists is always losing things. Once it was a big dog. Don't know yet how a dog got into this here theater. Had to feed it for four days before somebody showed up to claim it. Fierce-looking animal. Part bloodhound, part water spaniel."
Fascinated in spite of himself, Malone said, "That's impossible."