Around the following winter an old friend of Chuck's came to work as an editor for the company. His name was Stu and I don't remember much about him except that he was sort of a religious Fundamentalist, I think. The tie was that Stu's wife had been a close friend of Maggie's in her Times Square days. In any event, the two families decided to merge fortunes. Chuck and Maggie were living at that time in a big old house up near Holly Pond in Stamford. Stu and Helen moved in with them. It was in the middle of a cold winter. Soon a pattern developed at the office: on days Chuck came to work, Stu would be missing. And when Stu came, Chuck was absent.

    This didn't escape George's notice. One day he collared me in the hall.

    "Bernie ... what's Chuck up to? Notice he's missin' half the time..." He accepted my protestations of innocence.

    Next time I saw Chuck, I put it to him:

    "Hey, Chuck! Your Old Man wants to know where you been every other day. Been askin' me..."

    The answer was immediately forthcoming:

    "In bed".

    "In bed?" I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what came next... "In bed?" Was a menage a quatro or something peculiar about to be revealed?

    "Lord-God,. Bernie - it's been cold."

    I couldn't argue with that. It was dead of winter.

    "Only got one overcoat...(and as afterthought)... one pair of shoes...".

    And then the tale emerged. So hard-pressed were these two struggling young editors with their respective broods that they had pooled their wardrobes and one was staying in bed all day while the other went to work in their common overcoat and shoes. Turn .. and turnabout.

    They also bought an old car together about that time and resorted to shade-tree mechanics to get it in running condition. Except there was no shade at that time of year - but there was a beautiful old oak in the front lawn of their place with a fine stout branch sticking out from it. To this branch they made fast a makeshift hoist and managed to disconnect the engine block and hoist it up and into the air, hanging from the tree limb. But here their limited funds, or limited mechanical know-how - or both - ran out and they turned their attention elsewhere. (This was also the time Chuck designed and built a coffee-packaging machine in the cellar of the old house. He intended to patent it when he got the bugs out - but all that ever happened was the cellar gradually filled ankle deep in coffee beans... He was the original Lorenzo Jones).

    Anyhow, in due course, as they say, he and Stu moved out of the old place up on Holly Pond - lock, stock, and barrel. But not block. Engine block. They rolled the old chassis off somewhere - but they left the engine block swinging on the treelimb ten feet up in the air - to the consternation of their ex-landlord who sought them vainly at the office for days. This "Charlie Rhine Strategm" of "leaving things up in the air" as it were, we shall meet again...

    Behind the office on Putnam Avenue was a sort of crooked alley which ran off down the hill behind the stores on Greenwich Avenue. The same alley, incidentally, on which George's private office opened direct. At lunchtime, we three - George, Chuck, and I - often walked down this alley to a small diner halfway down the Avenue. All manner of interesting things were discarded in this alley from time to time and we often vied over the spoils. One of my prize winnings (still with me) was a stuffed caribou head tossed out behind the Moose Hall one day! (How came the Loyal Order of Moose by a caribou head is another tale!) George's phrase for such finds was that they "...stuck to his (our) coattails" as we chanced to pass by...

    And so one day we noticed a loose flap on the basement window of a boarded-up onetime commercial laundry which backed on the alley. One minute we three were walking down the alley in broad daylight - the next - and without a word - we had vanished as one through the flap into the dark cavernous bowels of the laundry. (We were as a well-oiled team in those days).

    We fanned out...

    Soon, in the twilight gloom, I spied a trove in one corner: a pile of good mechanics wrenches and other tools still lying where the long-gone maintenance staff had dropped them. These all "...stuck to my coattails..." when I left. Meanwhile, I heard muffled thuds from a sub-basement and followed them to their source. Here was George W. Rhine, Sr. VP and Editor-in-Chief of the Cleworth Publishing Company - in soiled, but nonetheless expensive business suit, busy dismantling a very greasy but very good compressor and engine left behind when the laundry was boarded up. This find, stuck, in turn, to his coattails - and though it took two days of surreptitious work and a lookout posted at the loose flap - we got it out and into the truck at last.

    George never seemed concerned the least about what might befall him should he be caught in such flagrante - him being a responsible citizen and all and senior officer in the publishing company. As for Chuck and myself, well - our standings in the community in those days were more nearly parallel that of the Artful Dodger and his companions than to any person of substance...

    But it was Chuck who made the most curious find of all in the abandoned laundry: he found the room where the clothes in process of being laundered had been dumped when the Laundry operators took Chapter 12 or whatever it was. And this clothes pile turned out to be mostly waiter's uniforms with little silver buttons on them and high collars. And there were dozens of them! Kind of like black tuxedo pants and the little white jackets had pointed extensions in front that came down just below belt-level.

    Very dashing!

    Dashing, indeed ... for they all stuck to Chuck's coattails - indeed, they became Chuck's coattails for he took them home and then began to wear them back to the office. No need for anyone to stay in bed all day anymore! He would show up at the office looking like any other wage slave in overcoat and shoes. Then in the privacy of our office, he would shed his topcoat, and Voila'! - being short and all - it looked like the Phillip Morris callboy had joined the staff! Chuck wore those waiter's uniforms to the office all that winter and no one laughed or said anything.

    No one that is.. except me.

    I would put my feet up on the desk, pull out some galley proofs to review - and then absently turn to Chuck and ask him if he would mind bringing me a Dewars and Soda, please...

    "Lord-God, Bernie.. don't see what's so funny," he would say. "They're made of real good cloth, and all, and Maggie and the kids polish the buttons sometimes at night for me..."