"There'll be someone along in just a minute," she said, "to show us to a table. Everyone seems so busy. There must have been a rush-Sylvester, cut that out!"

She spoke appealingly to the people at the table beside which they stood. "You'll excuse him, please. He has no manners, none at all. Especially table manners. He snatches everything in sight."

Sylvester licked his chops, looking satisfied.

"Think nothing of it, miss," said the man with the bushy beard. "I really didn't want it. To order steak is just compulsive with me."

Someone shouted across the room. "Pete! Pete Maxwell!"

Maxwell peered into the gloom. At a far table, inserted in a corner, someone had risen and was waving his arms. Maxwell finally made him out. It was Alley Oop and beside him sat the white-shrouded figure of Ghost.

"Friends of yours?" asked Carol.

"Yes. Apparently they want us to join them. Do you mind?"

"The Neanderthaler?" she asked.

"You know him?"

"No. I just see him around at times. But I'd like to meet him. And that is the Ghost?"

"The two are inseparable," said Maxwell.

"Well, let's go over, then."

"We can say hello and go somewhere else."

"Not on your life," she said. "This place looks interesting."

"You've never been here before?"

"I've never dared," she said.

"I'll break the path," he told her.

He forged slowly among the tables, trailed by the girl and cat.

Alley Oop lunged out into the aisle to meet him, flung his arms around him, hugged him, then grasped him by the shoulders and thrust him out at arm's length to stare into his face.

"You are Old Pete?" he asked. "You aren't fooling us?"

"I am Pete," said Maxwell. "Who do you think I am?"