"All right, Cap," says I. "Next time I turn sudden I'll stick my hand out." I was movin' off when I notices him still standin' sort of hesitatin'. "Well?" I adds. "Can I help?"
"You don't happen to know," says he, "of a good eatin' house where it don't cost too all-fired much to git a square meal, do you?"
"Why," says I, "I expect over on Eighth-ave., you could——" And then I gets this rash notion of squarin' the account by blowin' him to a real feed. Course, I might be sorry; but he looks so sort of lonesome and helpless that I decides on takin' a chance. "Say, you come with me," says I, "and lemme stack you up against the real thing in Canadian mutton chops."
"If it don't cost over twenty-five cents," says he.
"It won't," says I, smotherin' a grin. He wa'n't a grafter, anyway, and the only way I could ease his mind on the expense question was to let him hand me a quarter before we went in, and make him think that covered his share. Max, the head waiter, winks humorous as he sees who I'm towin' in; but he gives us a table by a Broadway window and surprises the old boy by pullin' out his chair respectful.
"Much obliged, Mister," says Jim Isham. "Much obliged."
With that he hangs his old cap careful on the candle shade. It's one of these oldtime blizzard headpieces, with sides that you can turn down over your ears and neck. Must have worn that some constant; for from the bushy eyebrows up he's as white as a piece of chalk, and with the rest of his face so coppery it gives him an odd, skewbald look.
I expected a place like Collins's, with all its pictures and rugs and fancy silverware, would surprise him some; but he don't seem at all fussed. He tucks his napkin under his chin natural and gazes around int'rested. He glances suspicious at a wine cooler that's carted by, and when the two gents at the next table are served with tall glasses of ale he looks around as if he was locatin' an exit. Next he digs into an inside pocket, hauls out a paper, spreads it on the table, and remarks:
"Let's see, Mister—jest about where are we now?"
I gives him the cross street and the Broadway number, and he begins tracin' eager with his finger. Fin'lly he says: