ss a walk up Fifth Avenue.
Besides, I can often think clearer when my rubber heels are busy. Did
you ever try walkin' down an idea? It's a good hunch. The one I was
tryin' to surround was how I could sub in for this Al Nekkir party
myself without gettin' Stella suspicious. If I had to say the lines
would she spot me by my voice? If she did it would be all up with the
game.

Honest, I wasn't thinkin' of whiskers at all. In fact, I hadn't
considered the proposition, but was workin' on an entirely different
line, when all of a sudden, just as I'm passin' the stone lions in front
of the public library, this freak looms up out of the crowd. Course you
can see 'most anything on Fifth Avenue, if you trail up and down often
enough--about anything or anybody you can see anywhere in the world,
they say. And this sure was an odd specimen.

He was all of six feet high and most of him was draped in a brown
raincoat effect that buttoned from his ankles to his chin. Besides that,
he wore a green leather cap such as I've never seen the mate to, and he
had a long, solemn face that was mostly obscured by the richest and
rankest growth of bright chestnut whiskers ever in captivity.

I expect I must have grinned. I'm apt to. Probably it was a friendly
grin. With hair as red as mine I can't be too critical. Besides, he was
gazin' sort of folksy at people as he passed. Still, I didn't think he
noticed me among so many and I hadn't thought of stoppin' him. I'd gone
on, wonderin' where he had blown in from, and chucklin' over that fancy
tinted beard, when the first thing I knew here he was at my elbow
lookin' down on me.

"Forgive, sahib, but you have the face of a kindly one," says he.

"Well, I'm no consistent grouch, if that's what you mean," says I.
"What'll it be?"

"Could you tell to a stranger in a strange land what one does who has
great hunger and no rupees left in his purse?" says he.

"Just what you've done," says I. "He picks out an easy mark. I don't
pass out the coin reckless, though. Generally I tow 'em to a hash house
and watch 'em eat. Are you hungry enough for that?"

"Truly, I have great hunger," says he.

So, five minutes later I've led him into a side street and parked him
opposite me at a chop house table. "How about a slice of roast beef
rare, with mashed potatoes and turnips and a cup of coffee?" says I.

"Pardon," says he, "but it is forbidden me to eat the flesh of animals."

So we compromised on a double