I live here en pension now.
But what have you got against old Egbert?"
"Nothing.
I merely have a natural shyness of policemen and staff officers.
Comes from my army days."
She laughed.
"My father was a major."
"Major is just on the border line," I replied.
"Do you know old Hake, then?" she asked.
I was suddenly seized with an alarming thought.
"Is he a little chap, so high, very straight, with a red face, a white moustache, and a big voice?
The sort to go walking a lot in the park?"
"Aha!" She glanced at the lilac and then looked at me, smiling.
"No, he's a tall, pale-faced chap with horn-rimmed spectacles."
"Then I don't know him."
"Would you like to know him?
He's very nice."
"God forbid!
For the moment I belong more to the mechanic and Zalewski side."
There was a knock.
The maid of a while back pushed in a low trolley.
Eggshell porcelain, a silver dish with cakes, another with incredibly tiny sandwiches, serviettes, cigarettes, and God knows what else—dazzled, I surveyed it all.
"Mercy, Pat!" said I. "It's just like the films.
I'm used to eating out of grease-proof paper off the Zalewski window ledge, remember, the old tommy-cooker beside me.
Have mercy on the inhabitant of a loveless pension if in his confusion he smashes an odd cup or two."
She laughed.
"You won't do that.
Your professional honour as a motor mechanic forbids it.
You must be clever with your fingers." She reached for the handle' of a jug. "Tea or coffee, Bob?"
"Tea or coffee?
Are there both then?"
"Yes.
Look." "Grand.
Like the best palaces!
All it wants now is music."
She leaned over and switched on a little portable radio which I had not noticed before.
"So—now what will you have, tea or coffee?"
"Coffee, plain coffee, Pat.
I'm homely.
And you?"
"I'll have coffee with you."
"But otherwise you take tea?"
"Yes."
"Then we'll have that."
"I'll start now and get used to coffee.
Will you have cakes with it or sandwiches?"
"Both, Pat.
One must make the best of one's opportunities.
I'll have some tea after, too.
I must sample everything you have."