“Where shall I buzz you?” I asked.
“Buzz me? At home! Where else on New Year’s Eve? Morality is what we need. My good man, New Year’s Eve should be celebrated at home. That’s our way—n’est pas?”
“I know it’s your home. What’s the number?”
“Look it up in the book. Are you literate? Then look it up, in the book, that is. We have no secrets, like some others. En mase.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll buzz you.”
“Do buzz me, mon cher. And if he should start in biting, then you can put the clamps on him. Don’t be bashful. C’est Ia vie.”
I gathered my nerve and muttered, “We haven’t drunk our toast to the familiar relationship.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind, I was just talking,” I said.
He looked at me for some time with his translucent eyes in which nothing at all was expressed, and then pronounce
