Wickert paid an unconscious tribute to good-breeding.  “Banneker’s the kind of feller that wouldn’t show it if he was surprised.  He couldn’t have been as surprised as I was, at that.  We went to the bar and had a drink, and then I ast him what’d he, have on me, and all the time I was sizing him up.  I’m telling you, he looked like he’d grown up in Sherry’s.”

The rest of the conversation, it appeared from Mr. Wickert’s spirited sketch, had consisted mainly in eager queries from himself, and good-humored replies by the other.

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. Wickert (awed and groping) would be damned!  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?  Could Banneker set him on his way?  He was taking a taxi to the Avon Theater, where there was an opening.

Did Mr. Banneker (Wickert had by this time attained the “Mr.” stage) always follow up his dinner at Sherry’s with a theater?

Usually, if there were an opening.  If not he went to the opera or a concert.

For his part, Wickert liked a little more spice in life.  Still, every feller to his tastes.  And Mr. Banneker was sure dressed for the part.  Say—­if he didn’t mind—­who made that full-dress suit?

No; of course he didn’t mind.  Mertoun made it.

After which Mr. Banneker had been deftly enshrouded in a fur-lined coat, worthy of a bank president, had crowned these glories with an impeccable silk hat, and had set forth.  Wickert had only to add that he wore in his coat lapel one of those fancy tuberoses, which he, Wickert, had gone to the pains of pricing at the nearest flower shop immediately after leaving Banneker.  A dollar apiece!  No, he had not accepted the offer of a lift, being doubtful upon the point of honor as to whether he would be expected to pay a pro rata of the taxi charge.  They, the assembled breakfast company, had his permission to call him, Mr. Wickert, a goat if Mr. Banneker wasn’t the swellest-looking guy he had anywhere seen on that memorable evening.

Nobody called Mr. Wickert a goat.  But Mr. Hainer sniffed and said: 

“And him a twenty-five-dollar-a-week reporter!”