It was time, maybe, to bring up the other reason why I dropped in on Morry more often than not Morry had only one of our machines in his place. It was the razzmatazz kind, blinking red, white and blue, and stood next to the lunch counter. Further on, through a glass door, Morry had a bar and grill attached to his alley, but he had no jukebox in there.

I got off my stool, walked to the jukebox, and spent a coin on the blinking monster. It thumped four bars of intro and then played a sweet, friendly ballad. I thought this might help.

“Morry,” I said, “I’ll take a cup of your coffee.”

He folded his arms, leaned back against the cooler, and said:

“No.”

“No? Now what?’”

“I don’t want another jukebox in here.”

“Morry, all I was about…”

“I know what was coming. No.”

Walter Lippit would now have been proud of me. Because I smiled and laughed a little bit and made out as if I didn’t mind Morry at all.

“Look,” I said, “what’s it cost you? Nothing. We put in the machine; we service the gadget, and you keep thirty-three and one third of the take. Which isn’t counting…”

“The bond I pay, the service charge when the buttons don’t button, the aggravation when your monkeys don’t show up to fix what needs fixing.”

“Morry,” I said. “Any complaints you got, tell me about them. Though I notice,” and I looked at the machine next to the counter, “that the music comes sweet and perfect.”

“Sure. I had it fixed. I wait two days for your monkeys to show and to fix the buttons, and nothing. So I had it fixed.”

Walter Lippit writes a contract with the places that use his machines, which says nobody fixes the gadgets except us; nobody monkeys with the wires, or else. The “or else” wasn’t any too clear in the contract, or clear in my mind, because we had no competition and there had never been any call for “or elses.” I stayed friendly.