“They’re red hot!” he cried repeatedly, walking up and down parallel to the train and only a foot from it—while Grand, after a minute of general observation, focused all his attention on this person; and then, at exactly one minute before departure, he began his case with the hotdog-man.
“Red hot!” he shouted; and when the man reached the window, Grand eyed him shrewdly for a second, squinting, as though perhaps appraising his character, before asking, tight-lipped:
“How much?”
“Twenty cents,” the hotdog-man said hurriedly—for the train was about to pull out—“... mustard and relish, they’re red hot!”
“Done!” said Grand with a sober nod, and as the train actually began to move forward and the hotdog-man to walk rapidly in keeping abreast of the window, Guy Grand leaned out and handed him a five-hundred-dollar bill.
“Break this?” he asked tersely.
The hotdog-man, in trying to utilize all their remaining time, passed the hotdog to Grand and reached into his change pocket before having looked carefully at the bill—so that by the time he made out its denomination, he was running almost full tilt, grimacing oddly and shaking his head, trying to return the bill with one hand and recover the hotdog with the other. During their final second together, with the hotdog-man’s last overwhelming effort to reach his outstretched hand, Grand reached into his own coat pocket and took out a colorful plastic animal mask—today it was that of pig—which he quickly donned before beginning to gorge the hotdog through the mouth of the mask, at the same time reaching out frantically for the bill, yet managing somehow to keep it just beyond his fingers’ grasp, and continuing with this while the distance between them lengthened, hopelessly, until at last the hotdog-man stood exhausted on the end of the platform, still holding the five hundred, and staring after the vanishing train.
When Grand finally drew himself back from the window and doffed his pig mask, it was to face a middle-aged woman across the aisle who was twisted halfway around in her seat, observing Grand with a curiosity so intense that the instant of their eyes actually meeting did not seem to register with her. Then she coughed and glanced away—but irresistibly back again, as Guy Grand rose, all smiles, to leave the day coach, giving the woman a wink of affectionate conspiracy as he did.
“Just having a laugh with that hot-frank vender,” he explained. “... no real harm done, surely.”
He returned to his compartment then, where he sat at the desk sipping his Campari—a drink the color of raspberries, but bitter as gall—and speculating about the possible reactions of the hotdog-man.