Morton would say nothing of his wanderings after their parting in Liverpool beyond: “Oh, I just bummed around. Places…. Warm to-night. For this time of year.” Thrice he explained, “I was kind of afraid you’d be sore at me for the way I left you; that’s why I’ve never looked you up.” Thrice Mr. Wrenn declared that he had not been “sore,” then ceased trying to make himself understood.
Their talk wilted. Both of them played with their knives a good deal. Morton built a set of triangles out of toothpicks while pretending to give hushed attention to the pianist’s rendition of “Mammy’s Little Cootsie Bootsie Coon,” while Mr. Wrenn stared out of the window as though he expected to see the building across get afire immediately. When either of them invented something to say they started chattering with guilty haste, and each agreed hectically with any opinion the other advanced.
Mr. Wrenn surprised himself in the thought that Morton hadn’t anything very new to say, which made him feel so disloyal that he burst out, effusively:
“Say, come on now, old man; I just got to hear about what you did after you left Liverpool.”
“I—”
“Well—”
“I never got out of Liverpool! Worked in a restaurant…. But next time—! I’ll go clean to Constantinople!” Morton exploded. “And I did see a lot of English life in Liverpool.”
Mr. Wrenn talked long and rapidly of the world’s baseball series, and Regal vs. Walkover shoes.
He tried to think of something they could do. Suddenly:
“Say, Morty, I know an awful nice guy down here in a cigar-store. Let’s go down and see him.”