That man was probably sent to mark us down for one of the gangs. Now they'll know what we look like, and they can get after us."
"These are the drawbacks to being public men, Comrade Windsor. We must bear them manfully, without wincing."
Billy turned again to his work.
"I'm not going to wince," he said, "so's you could notice it with a microscope. What I'm going to do is to buy a good big stick. And I'd advise you to do the same."
* * *
It was by Psmith's suggestion that the editorial staff of Cosy Moments dined that night in the roof-garden at the top of the Astor Hotel.
"The tired brain," he said, "needs to recuperate. To feed on such a night as this in some low-down hostelry on the level of the street, with German waiters breathing heavily down the back of one's neck and two fiddles and a piano whacking out 'Beautiful Eyes' about three feet from one's tympanum, would be false economy. Here, fanned by cool breezes and surrounded by fair women and brave men, one may do a bit of tissue-restoring. Moreover, there is little danger up here of being slugged by our moth-eaten acquaintance of this morning. A man with trousers like his would not be allowed in. We shall probably find him waiting for us at the main entrance with a sand-bag, when we leave, but, till then—"
He turned with gentle grace to his soup.
It was a warm night, and the roof-garden was full. From where they sat they could see the million twinkling lights of the city. Towards the end of the meal, Psmith's gaze concentrated itself on the advertisement of a certain brand of ginger-ale in Times Square. It is a mass of electric light arranged in the shape of a great bottle, and at regular intervals there proceed from the bottle's mouth flashes of flame representing ginger-ale. The thing began to exercise a hypnotic effect on Psmith. He came to himself with a start, to find Billy Windsor in conversation with a waiter.
"Yes, my name's Windsor," Billy was saying.
The waiter bowed and retired to one of the tables where a young man in evening clothes was
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