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Updated: May 31, 2025
There I was at the door, and he said, 'Why, hello, Wickert. Come and have a liquor. He pronounced it a queer, Frenchy way. So I said thanks, I'd have a highball." "Didn't he seem surprised to see you there?" asked Hainer. Wickert paid an unconscious tribute to good-breeding. "Banneker's the kind of feller that wouldn't show it if he was surprised.
Wickert ignored the gibe. Such was the greatness of his tidings that he could afford to. "Our firm was giving a banquet to some buyers and big folks in the trade. Private room upstairs; music, flowers, champagne by the case. We do things in style when we do 'em. They sent me up after hours with an important message to our Mr. Webler; he was in charge of arrangements."
"Having his dinner there?" asked the incredulous but fascinated Mrs. Brashear. "Like he owned the place. Waiter fussin' over him like he loved him. And dressed! Oh, Gee!" "Did you speak to him?" asked Lambert. "He spoke to me," answered Wickert, dealing in subtle distinctions. "He was just finishing his coffee when I sighted him. Gave the waiter haffa dollar. I could see it on the plate.
He wished to see Banneker's face. To his relief it did not look angry or even stern. Rather, it appeared thoughtful. Banneker was considering impartially the matter of his apparel. "What is the matter with my clothes?" he asked. "Why well," began Wickert, unhappy and fumbling with his ideas; "Oh, they're all right." "For a meeting of the Farmers' Alliance." Banneker was smiling good-naturedly.
"What's his job: that's what I'd like to know," demanded in a tone of challenge, young Wickert, a man of the world who clerked in the decorative department of a near-by emporium. "Newsboy, I guess," said Lambert, the belated art-student of thirty-odd with a grin. "He's always got his arms full of papers when he comes in."
Did Banneker eat there every night? Oh, no! He wasn't up to that much of a strain on his finances. But the waiters seemed to know him, as if he was one of the regulars. In a sense he was. Every Monday he dined there. Monday was his day off. Well, Mr. All alone? Banneker, smiling, admitted the solitude. He rather liked dining alone. Oh, Wickert couldn't see that at all!
Give him a pal and a coupla lively girls, say from the Ladies' Tailor-Made Department, good-lookers and real dressers; that was his idea of a dinner, though he'd never tried it at Sherry's. Not that he couldn't if he felt like it. How much did they stick you for a good feed-out with a cocktail and maybe a bottle of Italian Red? Well, of course, that depended on which way was Wickert going?
Did I miss something that came earlier?" Mr. Hainer melted unostentatiously into the darkness. While young Wickert was debating whether his pride would allow him to follow this prudent example, the subject of their over-frank discussion appeared at his elbow. Evidently he was as light of foot as he was quick of ear.
The opinion came from a thin, quietly dressed woman of the early worn-out period of life, who sat a little apart from the others. Young Wickert started a sniff, but suppressed it, for Miss Westlake was held locally in some degree of respect, as being "well-connected" and having relatives who called on her in their own limousines, though seldom. "Anybody know his name?" asked Lambert.
To this sedate assemblage descended one crisp December morning young Wickert, clad in the natty outline of a new Bernholz suit, and obviously swollen with tidings. "Whaddya know about the latest?" he flung forth upon the coffee-scented air.
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