You must come and have luncheon with me, of course."
Greenbrier pinned him sadly but firmly to the wall with a hand the size,
shape and color of a McClellan saddle.
"Longy," he said, in a melancholy voice that disturbed traffic, "what
have they been doing to you? You act just like a citizen. They done made
you into an inmate of the city directory. You never made no such Johnny
Branch execration of yourself as that out on the Gila. 'Come and have
lunching with me!' You never defined grub by any such terms of reproach
in them days."
"I've been living in New York seven years," said Merritt. "It's been
eight since we punched cows together in Old Man Garcia's outfit. Well,
let's go to a cafe, anyhow. It sounds good to hear it called 'grub'
again."
They picked their way through the crowd to a hotel, and drifted, as by
a natural law, to the bar.
"Speak up," invited Greenbrier.
"A dry Martini," said Merritt.
"Oh, Lord!" cried Greenbrier; "and yet me and you once saw the same pink
Gila monsters crawling up the walls of the same hotel in Canon Diablo! A
dry--but let that pass. Whiskey straight--and they're on you."
Merritt smiled, and paid.
They lunched in a small extension of the dining room that connected with
the cafe.
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