“I couldn’t get anything out of him. He’s too damned dumb.”
“Yeah?” the sophisticated Sunday editor would reply. “My boy, you have made the customary blunder of mistaking Tony’s depth for thickness!”
Bobby Merrick knew from experience that Tony would be on hand tonight, to attend to his pressing wants. He would be served with amazing rapidity a steak well able to hold its own alongside many a more snobbish cut of select beef with a Parisian name, all buttoned up the back with mushrooms and presented with stiff salaams on a silver-mounted plank at a cost ten times the tariff Tony levied. There would be freshly-made coffee and a salad worthy of an exacting palate.
Tony knew exactly when to stop rubbing the bowl with garlic.
Bursting into the little café, Bobby found himself the sole patron. Tony, drowsy but amiable, made haste to draw out a chair for him. With the grace of a courtier, he took his guest’s heavy fur coat and deftly shook the snow from its shoulders.
His client enumerated his desires with the eloquent conviction of one who knows exactly what he wants, and Tony made off with his instructions.
“Needn’t bother about the potatoes, Tony,” called Bobby, as his host began to rattle his pans.
“Out dam’ late, doc!” shouted Tony, above the hiss of the hot grill. He had an unerring instinct for identifying medics; probably because they were older than the rah-rahs, and had a pungent smell. Medics were always highly aromatic of their future trade.
“Baby case, mebbe?”
He liked to make the young medics think they looked old and wise enough to be interns, at least, or out on call, understrapping for their snug-in-bed betters. Eventually the more industrious and persistent would be “doctored” officially, some fine June morning at Hill Auditorium, in the sonorous tones of the President; but every one of them had long since received his degree from Tony. They chaffed one another about it; but never chided him, or suggested that he discontinue the practice.
“No, Tony,” drawled Bobby, “nothing like that. Not for a long time yet. And no babies—ever!”
Tony plopped the thick stone dishes down with a comforting clatter on the bare table, adorned only by deep-carved initials—some of them to be pointed to with pride; many of them reminiscent of excellent stories without which the university traditions would have been seriously impoverished.
The steak was a masterpiece. The potatoes had arrived, magnanimously unmindful of the guest’s feeling of indifference toward them. There was a head of chilled lettuce, half the size of a small cabbage, dripping with a creamy Roquefort dressing not to be had in that exact degree of all-rightness in more than six other places in the North Temperate zone.
“Coffee, doc?”
“You bet, Tony! Strong as brandy and hot as hell! I’m in great need of nourishment!”
Tony put down the steaming mug, thrust his big thumbs under his apron-string, in the vicinity of his waistcoat pockets, and considered his voracious customer with deep satisfaction. The next best thing to broiling a choice steak was watching a healthy client making proper use of it.
“No babies—eh?”
Bobby shrugged a shoulder and shook his head.
“Eye-ear-nose—mebbe? Lots of dem fellers.”
“Heads!” declared Bobby, stoutly abjuring ophthalmology, otology, and all their works.
“Ah—so?” Tony grew excited. “I show you a head! You like for to see heads? Look, doc!” He bent down and offered for minute inspection a four-inch strip of bare white scalp. Straightening, he lightly tapped the scar and nodded several times very solemnly, “I dam’ near die … Very bad!”
“Accident?” inquired Bobby.
“Railroad!”
“Wreck, maybe?”
Tony chuckled.
“Nah! Work on da railroad. Jus’—what you, call—wop! Not ride.”
“So after you were hurt, you thought you had enough of working on the railroad, eh?”
“I’ll say da world!” concurred Tony, whose amazing use of the prevailing slang was by no means the least of his conversational charms. “Doc Hudson—he set me up here.”
“You don’t tell me!” Bobby put down his fork and gave attention.
Tony nodded vigorously.
“Doc Hudson—Detroit—he fix me. Patch da head. Put me in da business. Great feller! Too bad he die!”
When it was evident that his patron wanted to know all about it, Tony was eager to furnish information. The sanguinary account of his accident was recited dramatically with much stress upon the grisly details, not omitting a quite voluminous report of the minor incidents leading up to the event, many of which were less essential to the pathology of the case than to the histrionic technique of the narrator.
All but dead, he had been; yes. The company surgeon had called in Doctor Hudson. Hudson had done “da eempossible!” But never again must Tony be working under the hot sun—never!
“ ‘But what I do?’ I cry. ‘I starve; mebbe?’ … ‘Can you cook, Tony?’ he say.”
It developed into a long story. Doctor Hudson had spent a whole day helping Tony locate a suitable place for his little restaurant; had guaranteed the rent of the building; had been present at the purchase of the range; had deposited to Tony’s account in the leading bank a sum sufficient to carry him until his income was assured.
“I never heard about this before, Tony,” said Bobby.
“No! Nobody know! Doc say, ‘Tony! Tell nobody. Not while I leeve.’ He dead now. I can tell!”
Bobby’s glassy look of abstraction was mistaken for waning interest in the story, and Tony had no wish to bore his guest. He would return to the medic’s pet interest. It was reasonably sure he would be attentive to an inquiry about his own aspirations.
“So!—You do heads, too, mebbe—like Doc Hudson?”
“I hope to, Tony. Some day,” said Bobby, rising.
“Great feller—Doc Hudson! … Nobody know!”
Young Merrick paid his bill, donned his coat, said good night, lingered with his hand on the latch. Tony had begun clearing the table.
“I say—Tony!”
Tony put down a double handful of dishes.
“Did Doctor Hudson ever tell you why he wanted you to keep it a secret about his setting you up here?”
Tony inserted his thumbs under his apron-string and strolled forward, meditatively shaking his head.
“Dam’ funny feller! He say, jus’ like
