Finally, I was able to get a word in edgeways and I pulled the block out of my pocket and put it on the table. “what is that?” I asked.
I expected him to say right off it was just a child’s block. But he didn’t. There must have been something about it to tip him off that it wasn’t just a simple block. That comes, of course, of having a technical education.
Lewis picked the block up and turned it around in his fingers.
“What’s it made of?” he asked me, sounding excited.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what it is or what it’s made of or anything about it. I just found it.”
“This is something I’ve never seen before.” Then he spotted the depression in one side of it and I could see I had him hooked. “Let me take it down to the shop. We’ll see what we can learn.”
I knew what he was after, of course. If the block was something new, he wanted a chance to go over it—but that didn’t bother me any. I had a hunch he wouldn’t find out too much about it.
We had a couple more beers and I went home. I hunted up an old pair of spectacles and put them on the desk right over the dot.
I was listening to the news when Helen came in. She said she was glad I’d spent the evening with Lewis, that I should try to get to know him better and that, once I got to know him better, I might like him. She said, since she and Marge were such good friends, it was a shame Lewis and I didn’t hit it off.
“Maybe we will,” I said and let it go at that.