his neck. At the bottom of the stairs he hung up his lantern, went to a corner, and maneuvered an old trunk so that he could stand on it and reach a high, ratproof shelf.
He had had the gift, predicted long ago by Great-aunt Cloud (left him by a stranger, and not money), for a long time before he learned how he could have come by it. Even before he learned, he was in his Mouse way secretive about it, the result of growing up on the street and youngest in a nosy family. Everyone admired the potent, musky hashish George seemed always to be provided with, and all desired to have some; but he would not (could not) introduce them to his dealer (who was long dead). He kept everyone happy with free bits, and the pipe was always full at his place; but though sometimes, after a few pipes of it, he would look around at his stupefied company and feel guilt for his gloating, and his great, his hilarious, his astonishing secret would burn within him to be spilt, he never told, not a soul.
It was Smoky who, inadvertently, revealed to George the source of his great good fortune. "I read somewhere," Smoky said (his usual entry into conversation), "that oh fifty or sixty years ago, your neighborhood was a Middle Eastern neighborhood. Lots of Lebanese. And the little candy stores and places like that sold hashish, right out in the open. You know, along with the toffee and halvah. For a nickel, you could buy a lot. Big hunks. Like chocolate bars."
And indeed they were very much like chocolate bars. . . . George had felt like a cartoon mouse suddenly struck over the head with the great, well-worn mallet of Revelation.
Ever afterward, when he went down to take from his hoard, he had imagined himself a goat-bearded Levantine, hooknosed and skull-capped, a secret pederast who gave free baklava to the olive boys of the streets. Fussily he would arrange the old trunk and climb on it (lifting the frayed skirts of an imaginary dressing gown) and lift the lid of the wooden crate stenciled with curling letters.
Not much left. Time to reorder soon.
Beneath a thick covering of silvered paper, layer upon layer of lay. The layers were separated by yellow oiled paper. The bars themselves were wrapped tightly too in a third sort of oily paper. He took out two, considered a moment, and put one reluctantly back. It would not, though he had exclaimed so in awe many years ago when he had discovered what it was, last forever. He replaced the layer of oiled paper and then the layer of silvered paper; he drew back on the stout lid, and pushed in place the ancient shapeless nails; he blew across it to resettle the dust. He got down, and studied the bar in the lantern's light as he had the very first by electric light. He peeled away its paper carefully. It was as black as chocolate, and about the size of a playing card, an eighth of an inch thin. It bore on it a convolute impress: A trademark? Tax stamp? Mystic sign? He had never decided.
He pushed the trunk he had used for a stepladder back into its place in the corner, took up the lantern and started up the stairs. In his cardigan pocket was a piece of hashish something like a hundred years old, and, George Mouse had long ago decided, not reduced in potency by age at all. Improved, perhaps, like vintage port.
News from Home
He was relocking the cellar door when there came a pounding at the street door, so sudden and unexpected that he cried out. He waited a moment, hoping it was some madman's momentary whim and wouldn't come again. But it did. He went to the door, listened at it without speaking, and heard frustrated cursing outside. Then, with a growl, the someone grabbed at the bars and began to shake them.
"That's no use, that's no use," George called. The shaking stopped.
"Well, open the door."
"What?" It was a habit of George's, when stuck for an answer, to act as though he hadn't heard the question.
"Open the door!"
"Now, you know I can't just open the door, man. You know what it's like."
"Well, listen. Can you tell me which of these buildings is number two-twenty-two?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Why does everybody in this city answer everything with a question?"
"Huh?"
"Why can't you open the door and talk to me