Meanwhile, Peoria was looking at me with an expression I'd never expected to see on his honest, open face: sulky irritation mixed with exasperated humor. It was the way a kid looks at a windbag uncle who's told all his stories, even the boring ones, three or four times.

“Ain't you picking up on this newsflash, Mr. Umney? We're rich! My mom ain't going to have to press shirts for that damned old Lee Ho anymore, and I ain't going to have to sell papers on the corner anymore, shiverin when it rains in the winter and havin to suck up to those nutty old bags who work down at Bilder's. I can quit actin like I died and went to heaven every time some blowhard leaves me a nickel tip.”

I started a little at that, but what the hell – I wasn't a nickel man. I left Peoria seven cents, day in and day out. Unless I was too broke to afford it, of course, but in my business an occasional stony stretch comes with the territory.

“Maybe we ought to go up to Blondie's and have a cup of java,” I said. “Talk this thing over.”

“Can't. It's closed.”

“Blondie's? The hell you say!”

But Peoria couldn't be bothered with such mundane stuff as the coffee shop up the street. “You ain't heard the best, Mr. Umney! My Uncle Fred knows a doctor up in Frisco – a specialist – who thinks he can do something about my eyes.” He turned his face up to mine. Below the cheaters and his too-thin nose, his lips were trembling. “He says it might not be the optic nerves after all, and if it's not, there's an operation... I don't understand all the technical stuff, but I could see again, Mr. Umney!” He reached out for me blindly... well, of course he did. How else could he reach out? “I could see again!”