He read the label on a tin of "dope," unwrapped a coil of wire cable and felt it, went at a parcel of unbleached linen, found the end and held a corner up to the light and squinted at it with his head perked sidewise.
Whereupon the hobo gave a limber twist of his lank body that inclined him closer to Johnny.

"Say, if it's any of my business, how much did Abe Smith tax yuh for that linen ?" His tone was languid, tinged with a chronic resentment against circumstance.
Johnny turned a startled stare upon him, seemed on the point of telling him that it was not any of his business, and with the next breath yielded to his hunger for speech with a human being, however lowly, whose intelligence was able to grasp so exalted a subject as aircraft.
"Dunno yet--I'll have to look it up on the bill," he said with a cheerful indifference that implied long familiarity with such matters.
"Looks to me like some of the same lot he stung me with last fall, is why I asked.

Abe will sting you every time the clock ticks.

Why don't yuh send to the Pacific Supply Company?
They're real people.

Got better stuff, and they'll treat you right whether you send or go yourself.