"Excuse me, gentlemen!"
Addison and Milford turned as one to see an enormous portly man emerging from a dark adjoining corridor. The man wore a fur overcoat, and carried a cane, and on his head was a smart derby hat. In his mouth was a cigarette in a jet black holder, and he smiled in what seemed a friendly fashion.
"I see you are having difficulties in igniting your cigarette," said the man.
"Why, yes, sir," said Addison. "It seems my friend's lighter is en panne, as the French say."
"Which is why I always carry good old fashioned Ohio Blue Tip matches," said the big man, approaching, and taking a large box of the aforementioned matches from his coat. "Made of good sturdy American aspen wood. Here, allow me."
Hooking the crook of his cane on his thick forearm, he opened the matchbox, took out a match with his fat fingers, struck it, and gave Addison a light.
"Thank you, sir," said Addison.
"Here," said the fat man, tossing away the match and proffering the matchbox, "keep it, pal. I always carry a back-up box or two."
"Gee, thanks," said Addison, and he took the box.
The man turned to Milford.
"Not smoking, chum?"
"That was my last cigarette," said Milford.
"You gave away your last cigarette?"
"Um," said Milford.
The fat man turned back to Addison.
"That's quite a friend you've got there, fella."
"Yes, indeed," said Addison.
"Some people say a dog is a man's best friend," said the man. "But try to get a cigarette from a dog."
He turned to Milford again, bringing out a golden cigarette case studded with sparkling stones, and he clicked it open.
"Take one, buddy, I hope you like Husky Boys King Size."
"Thanks," said Milford, and he picked out a cigarette.
"Brady's the name," said the man clicking the case smartly shut, and shoving it into a pocket, "known popularly as 'Diamond Jim', but my friends all call me Jim, plain and simple. Call me Jim, because I consider every man my friend until he has proven himself otherwise."
"Pleased to meet you, Jim," said Addison, and he struck a match from his newly-gifted box of Blue Tips and lighted Milford's cigarette.
"And might I presume to know your own names?" said the man whose friends allegedly called him Jim.
"Well," said Addison, flicking away the match, "my friends all seem to call me Addison, or should I say my acquaintances, because, to be quite honest I have only one real friend, at least of the male gender –"
"And that is this young fellow?" said Jim.
"Yes," said Addison. "And, Jim, meet my friend Milford."
"Pleased to meet you, Wilfred," said Jim, and he extended his great hand, on the middle finger of which was a large bejeweled signet ring.
"Um, hi, Jim," said Milford, and he allowed his small hand to be enveloped in the big man's hand.
"Don't worry, fella, I won't crush your hand. Even though my strength is as legendary as my appetites, I got no time for these guys always gotta advertise their masculinity by trying to crush another fella's paw."
"I appreciate it, sir," said Milford, withdrawing his hand after only a mildly painful squeeze and a shake that shook his whole slender body.
"And may I press my flesh to yours, Mathewson?" said the man to Addison.
"By all means," said Addison, and he in turn allowed his own weakling's hand to be swallowed up by the big fat man's huge hand.
"Two young bucks out on the town," said the man called Jim, releasing Addison's hand without unbearable harm.
"From the looks of you both I judge you to be members of the bohemian demimonde. You, Mr. Harrelman," he said, addressing Addison, who was wagging his right hand to get the blood flowing again, "you, sir, taking into account your worn old topcoat and that faded brown department-store suit, you I make to be a novelist, unpublished at present, but yet you still have time, before you fatally succumb to that predilection common to all great American writers, in other words, booze, you still have time I say to finish your sprawling epic of the old American west."
"That is very preceptive of you, Jim," said Addison.
"Whereas you, Milfrey," said Jim to Milford, "considering your peacoat, your fisherman's sweater and workman's dungarees, and of course your newsboy's cap as well as your thick round spectacles and facial pallor, you of course must be a poet, yes, a lyric poet if I am not too far terribly wrong."
"Well, attempted lyric poet," said Milford.
"I myself am a man of business," said the huge man called Jim,
"but I have always had a great fondness for the arts and especially for those who create art. In another life perhaps I would have trod the boards, specializing in embodying Shakespeare's immortal Falstaff. However, in a sense I am an artist, but my art is my life, the living of my life to the full. But I look at you two young scamps and I confess I feel just a tinge of envy. Ah, to be young again, just like the pair of you, wandering from saloon to pool hall to dance hall to bawdy house and then back again, I'll warrant, on an endless rollicking merry-go-round of debauchery. I do hope you're not on your way home yet."
"Well, no, not actually," said Addison. "You see, we were just looking for –"
"Splendid!" said Diamond Jim. "I insist that you accompany me, as my guests, of course, to the nearest likely tavern or bistro where we will eat, drink and make merry, because life is short and we must make the stuff of memories even if we get too plastered to remember them!"
"Well, that sounds great, Jim," said Addison, "but as I meant to say, we're trying to find a certain bar in particular –"
"What's it called?" said Jim.
"It's called the Hideaway I believe," said Addison.
"The Negro saloon?"
"Yes, precisely," said Addison. "Do you know it?"
"I know it very well," said the big man. "Have you been there before?"
"Yes, we just left there not so long ago, and now we would like to go back, but we've been having trouble finding it."
"I could take you there," said the big stout man.
"You could, you would?" said Addison.
"I should be glad to," said the man known as Diamond Jim. "But why if I may I ask did you ever leave such a delightful caravansary in the first place?"
"Well," said Addison, "that's a little difficult to explain. You see, Milford here had momentarily gotten a little under the weather so to speak."
"A drop too much taken, my boy?" said Jim, winking and smiling at Milford.
"Yes, I suppose so," said Milford, "especially because I am an alcoholic and shouldn't drink at all, but also, besides drinking wine and beer and whiskey and grog, and for reasons not quite clear to me,
I had earlier smoked hashish and marijuana, and eaten the sacred mushrooms of the American Indians, and most recently smoked a couple of special hand-rolled cigarettes comprised apparently of Bull Durham tobacco mixed with Acapulco gold and Panama red, jimson weed, John the Conqueroo, ayahuasca, and laudanum."
"What a jackanapes, you are, young sir!" said Jim.
"Yes, well, anyway," said Milford, "it all got a bit much for me, and so I decided to go home, or try to go home. And Addison here was nice enough to offer to see me home."
"But now you have changed your mind."
"Yes," said Milford.
"And, again, not to seem intrusively inquisitive, may I ask why?"
"Well, uh," said Milford.
"You see, Jim," helped out Addison, "we left some ladies at the Hideaway."
"Ah, ladies!" said Jim.
"Yes, ladies," said Addison.
The man looked at Milford.
"So you came to your senses," said the big fellow.
"I'm not so sure about that," said Milford, "but at any rate, I, and Addison, we decided to go back."
"Because of the ladies."
"Yes," said Milford. "Because of the ladies. Because, because –"
"Never mind, my boy, you have said enough," said Jim. "Why did Odysseus wend his long and winding and peril-fraught way back to Ithaca?"
"Because of a lady?"
"Precisely. But precious time is wasting. Therefore, let us stand not upon the order of our going, but as the bawdy Bard put it, go at once."
"And you know really know how to get to the Hideaway?" asked Addison.
"My good fellow, there's not a bar on this happy island I don't know how to get to," said Diamond Jim. "Now let's bust a move. By the way, I do hope your lady friends have other lady friends."
"They do, actually," said Addison.
"Then what are we dallying for? Come with me."
The big man turned and lumbered off, with surprising speed for his size, like a great thirsty hippopotamus trampling the savannah towards a water hole, and Addison and Milford stepped quickly to catch up with him as the dithering thumping of his great booted feet reverberated through the air and along the trembling boards of the flooring.
