Michael Malone - Weebly

"I saw you were still open. Is this new Rough book
any good?"
"Hello, Luke. How are you this evening?" Mr.
Smalter insisted that even the young observe the few
civilities of life.
"Fine. How about you?"
"Well, thank you." Now he answered the question.
"I'd say, not up to Die Quickly, but at least better than
the last two. Rough was in a slump. Just for a handful of
silver he left us." One of Smalter's few self-indulgences
was his constant conversational use of quotations from
Victorian poets. Since almost no one ever caught his
allusions, and no one was impolite or interested enough
to ask him what he was talking about, most Dingleyans
classified the pharmacist as a nut or an egghead (terms
nearly synonymous), though the majority agreed that his
mental peculiarity was understandable given his physical
one: despite painful surgery as a child, he had never
grown taller than he had been at eleven.
Luke shook his salary from its A&P envelope. "I'll
take the book, okay? And about that job, I tell you,
school's out tomorrow, you know, and then I start part-