TAKE A NUMBEK TAKE A SEAT
67
Suppose they don't get to hear about it, I ask him. He
must think I don 't know this is a democratic country, I can see
it from the way he gives it to me, one syllable at a time.
Lookit. I smacks dis guy, see? Dey pulls me in, see? De
judge, he asks me Whatcha do it fer, so I tells him. Dat's
plain, ain't it?
Yeah, but suppose he don't ask yuh
why
you done it, sup–
jose he just asks yuh
what
you done?
He gives it to me a different way.-Vvould I be putting a
man in de hospital fuh nuttin? Hell, no. Den if de judge was
fair, he'd pretty near
have
to be askin me why, ain't it?
Pass. So what?
So de reporters gits up offa dere cans and takes notice.
Dey wanta know all about it, see? Dey wanta know de details,
what'~
de name of dis lousy agency I'm talking about, what's
wrong with it, how come wit all de cash dey got coming in dey
don't dish nuttin out, all de dope, dey'd-
So, seeing this bozo is really serious, I'm· just about to tell
him I don't know about all that, it all depends on whether the
papers would call this news, what with all the kidnap murder
trials, prizefights, quintuplets being born, movie stars getting
divorced; battleships being baptized going on, et cetera, when I
hear my number,
92.
Excuse me, I says, that's my number. And
sidle up to majesty.
Take a seat, says she, what can I do for you?
Will you have a good look at a question like that, doesn't
it make you laugh !-I'd like to see Miss More, I tell her, demure
like I been stroked sixty times.
You can't see Miss More, says she, she's not in this morn–
ing. Her pencil begins to flicker invitingly across a pad of paper,
she becomes even more damn anxious to know what she can do
for me.
But I was talking to her just half an hour ago !-I give her
the spiel same way Diamond-eyes give it to me, like it's just a
matter of if she understands, then everything will be okey. With
eyes agape like youthling manholes, She said for me to wait,
I
splutter, she said she'd see me
I
You can't, she begins again-but what's the use of pro–
longing agony this way, the point is, she's right, I don't get to
see l\!Iiss More, that's it in short. Pince-nez asks me my name,
where I live, I tell her. Sh..: asks me is there something the
matter with my grocery order, ain't I getting it, and I tell her
