I want three things from my work. It’s got to move, it’s got to make money, and I’ve got to like whom I deal with. All this was true with the Lippit deal, was still almost true, except that it had lost a great deal of motion. As with Mister Stonewall’s bar. Mister Stonewall, now with contract and statistics in hand, had not even opened his mouth through all of Lippit’s spiel. And tomorrow, Mister Stonewall would have one of the new machines. Then Mister Stonewall did open his mouth.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I want one.”

Lippit had already started to go. He smiled, as if he hadn’t heard right, and put his big hands on the bar, gently.

“What?” he said. “You said what, Mister Stonewall?”

“I-uh, don’t find the deal very attractive.”

Lippit looked at me, as if to apologize for his friend, Mister Stonewall. Then he looked at Stonewall.

“I didn’t make clear that this costs you nothing? What I mean is,” said Lippit, “ if you take my machine, then it costs you nothing?”

I think Stonewall got the tone all right, but Lippit was still quietly smiling, which was no theatrical trick with him but real amusement at how stupid Mister Stonewall was acting. However, Stonewall must have thought it meant Lippit was deaf. He said the same thing again. He said:

“I don’t find the deal very attractive.”

Lippit sighed, being bored, and I was bored. Lippit said, “You got a better deal?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“There was a-there is this Mister Benotti who was here.”

All of a sudden the boredom was gone.

But Lippit looked at his watch and then pushed away from the bar.