And then it occurred to one or two of the board that the jovial “my friends” in the mouth of Reacher Gilt, so generous with his invitations, his little tips, his advice, and his champagne, was beginning, in its harmonics and overtones, to sound just like the word “pal” in the mouth of a man in an alley who was offering cosmetic surgery with a broken bottle in exchange for not being given any money.
