If the day was fine he would take a stroll down Seventh Avenue—he pictured the apartment as situated on Seventh Avenue—and in the afternoon he would take in a matinee; the best matinees in Harlem could be taken in complete for a dollar. When the show was done he would stroll and saunter some more, across One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, slapping his stick jauntily against his faultlessly creased trouser-leg, watching common working people exuding wearily from stores and offices and lofts, nodding slightly to his friends. He would dine at a Greek restaurant, a rotisserie, at a secluded little table beneath a pink shade, waving the obsequious waiter and the menu away, and ordering the Regular Dinner like a lord.
He would invite fellows to his rooms—he did not see that he could utilize more than one room, but rooms would be the right word. He would have a square-face of gin in his rooms—he could get it for two and a half, and the real stuff—and he would have rye, and a bottle of pale and smoky Scotch.
But all this would not exhaust five or six thousand per year. Sometimes he would go to other fellows' rooms, and would drink free of their rye and their Scotch. He would have a lot of money left over, week after week.
Well—he could play the ponies! He had always wanted to play the ponies, but the game had been too rich for his blood. But five or six thousand per year would be ample. It would be more than he could use. Why, even fifty per week would be wonderful; that would be three times the salary on which he had been managing to get along. He didn't know any fellow who was making fifty per week. He would be as snug inside it as a worm inside a nut. But——
He had to get it. Even if he was modest enough to be satisfied with it, he would not get it until he had earned it. What had possessed his old fool of an uncle to stick such a joker in? Why, Paul could not begin to earn fifty per week in a month of Sundays! Spend it? Well, yes, there was some chance of that. But earn it? Get some miserable tight-wad of an employer to put into his glad hand five big, crinkly, glistening, vividly green ten-dollar bills every Saturday? He could see him doing it—yes, he could!
So, sunk in an April state of mind, alternating glorious sunshine and overcast weather, he arrived at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street again, walked west, toward the Belvedere. He did not know why he was going there; but there was one person who knew something about him, one person who had caught a glimpse of him, one person upon whom he had not imposed a fictitious Paul Manley.
The pleasant-faced cashier was just going to lunch. Paul lifted his hat; she was passing him with a curt nod when she noticed that his face was troubled.
"Listen," he said, "could I talk to you a little bit? I want to ask you something. Can I take you to lunch?"
"If you let me pay my own."