George looked up at the dock. It was a quarter past six. The door from the street opened. A street-car motorman came in. “Hello, George,” he said. “Can I get supper?” “Sam’s gone out,” George said. “He’ll be back in about half an hour.” “I’d better go up the street,” the motorman said. George looked at the clock. It was twenty minutes past six. “That was nice, bright boy,” Max said. “You’re a regular little gentleman.” “He knew I’d blow his head off,” Al said from the kitchen. “No,” said Max. “It ain’t that. Bright boy is nice. He’s a nice boy. I like him.” At six-fifty-five George said: “He’s not coming.” Two other people had been in the lunch room. Once George had gone out to the kitchen and made a ham-and-egg sandwich “to go” that a man wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen he saw Al, his derby hat tipped back, sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back to back in the corner, a towel tied in each of their mouths. George had cooked the sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled paper, put it in a bag, brought it in, and the man had paid for it and gone out. “Bright boy can do everything,” Max said. “He can cook and everything. You’d make some girl a nice wife, bright boy.” “Yes?” George said. “Your friend, Ole Andreson, isn’t going to come.” “We’ll give him ten minutes,” Max said. Max watched the mirror and the clock. The hands of the clock marked seven o’clock, and then five minutes past seven. “Come on, Al,” said Max. “We better go. He’s not coming.” “Better give him five minutes,” Al said from the kitchen. In the five minutes a man came in, and George explained that the cook was sick. “Why the hell don’t you get another cook?” the man asked. “Aren’t you running a lunch counter?” He went out. “Come on, Al,” Max said. “What about the two bright boys and the nigger?” “They’re all right.” “You think so?” “Sure. We’re through with it.” “I don’t like it,” said Al. “It’s sloppy. You talk too much.” “Oh, what the hell,” said Max. “We got to keep amused, haven’t we?” “You talk too much, all the same,” Al said. He came out from the kitchen. The cut-off barrels of the shotgun made a slight bulge under the waist of his too tight-fitting overcoat. He straightened his coat with his gloved hands. “So long, bright boy,” he said to George. “You got a lot of luck.” “That’s the truth,” Max said. “You ought to play the races, bright boy.” The two of them went out the door. George watched them through the window pass under the arc light and cross the street. In their tight overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team. George went back through the swinging door into the kitchen and untied Nick and the cook. “I don’t want any more of that,” said Sam, the cook. “I don’t want any more of that.” Nick stood up. He had never had a towel in his mouth before. “Say,” he said. “What the hell?” He was trying to swagger it off.