Various Flavors of Coffee Read Free Page B

please,” he told the secretary. “The four and the nine, with the eighteen to follow. I’ll sign those while you’re gone.” He turned his gaze back to me. “You told me you were a writer, Mr.Wallis,” he said sourly.
    “Indeed.”
    “Yet my secretaries have been unable to find a single work by you in any Charing Cross bookshop. Mr. W. H. Smith’s subscription library has never heard of you. Even the literary editor of Blackwood’s Magazine is strangely unfamiliar with your work.”
    “I am a poet,” I said, somewhat taken aback by the diligence of Pinker’s researches.“But not a published one. I thought I had made that clear.”
    “You said you were not yet famous. Now I discover you are not yet even heard of. It is hard to see how you could be the one without being the other, is it not?” He sat down heavily on the other side of the table.
    “I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. But—”
    “Hang the impression. Precision, Mr. Wallis. All I ask from you—from anyone—is precision.”
    In the Café Royal, Pinker had seemed diffident, even unsure of himself. Here in his own offices, his manner was more authoritative. He took out a pen, uncapped it and reached for the pile of letters, signing each one with a rapid flourish as he spoke.“Take me, for example.Would I still be a merchant if I had never sold a single sack of coffee?”
    “It’s an interesting question—”
    “It is not. A merchant is someone who trades. Ergo, if I do not trade, I am not a merchant.”
    “But a writer, by the same token, must therefore be someone who writes, ” I pointed out.“It is not strictly necessary to be read as well. Only desirable.”
    “Hmm.” Pinker seemed to weigh this. “Very well.” I had the feeling I had passed some kind of test.
    The secretary returned with a tray on which were four thimble-sized cups and two steaming jugs, which he placed in front of us.“So,” his employer said, gesturing to me.“Tell me what you make of these.”
    The coffee was evidently freshly brewed—the smell was deep and pleasant. I tried some, while Pinker watched expectantly.
    “Well?” he demanded. “It’s excellent.”
    He snorted.“And?You are a writer, are you not? Words are your stock-in-trade?”
    “Ah.” I realized now what he wanted. I took a deep breath.“It is completely . . . invigorating. Like an Alpine sanatorium—no— like a seaside rest cure. I can think of no better, balmier, more bracing pick-me-up than Pinker’s breakfast blend. It will aid the digestion, restore the concentration and elevate the constitution, all at once.”
    “What?” The merchant was staring at me.
    “Of course, it needs a little work,” I said modestly.“But I think the general direction is—”
    “Try the other one,” he said impatiently.
    I started to pour from the second jug. “Not in the same cup!” he hissed.
    “Sorry.” I filled a second thimble-sized cup and sipped from it. “It’s different,” I said, surprised.
    “Yes, of course,” Pinker said.“And?”
    It had not really occurred to me before then that there was cof-fee and coffee. Of course, coffee might be watery, or stale, or over-brewed—in fact, it was often all those things—but here were two coffees, both palpably excellent, whose excellence varied from each other as chalk from cheese.
    “How might one deal with such a difference in words?” he said, and although his expression had not changed I had a sense that this was the nub of our conversation.
    “This one,” I said slowly, gesturing at the second cup,“has an al-most . . . smoky flavor.”
    Pinker nodded.“It does indeed.”
    “Whereas this one,” I pointed at the first,“is more . . . flowery.”
    “Flowery!” Pinker was still staring at me. “Flowery!” But he seemed interested—even, I thought, impressed. “Here—let me make a—” He pulled the secretary’s pad toward him and jotted down the word flowery. “Go on.”
    “This second cup has—a