need to get up,” I said hastily. “I don’t want to take up any of your time.”
But he finished unfolding himself and stood up. “I have plenty of time,” he said. He was over seven feet tall, and that meant a foot and a half over me—and very thin. His clothes looked pretty weatherbeaten, as if maybe he’d been caught in a few rainstorms.
“Jones,” said his booming voice from somewhere far above me. “High-Pockets Jones, sometimes known as the Dean of Barnstormers.”
I leaned back to look up at him. His face was as weatherbeaten as his clothes. I recognized the reddish tan that comes from facing a hot wind on the top of a moving boxcar. He was obviously a bum, and probably wouldn’t be with us long, but there was something almost of nobility in his eyes—calmness, gentleness, or perhaps just the knowledge of having been in many, many situations and the experience gained from getting out of them, and the self-assurance that he would always be able to get out of any situation.