Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room
With the suit unsnagged, the man of celluloid took a step to balance himself, stumbling a little on the shiny leather shoes and he caught a whiff of the lit cigarette, the coil of smoke curling up his nose. The cigarette in his own fingers was a comfort, a bad habit that was sociable except in poor weather. He had an idea that he didn’t much smoke these days but his cigarette case was full as he put it back into his breast pocket, so perhaps he’d taken it back up recently. He looked at his companion directly, the true straight-down-the-barrel gaze they paid the big bucks for, and he saw the flicker of red as it gleamed in black - unsettling, but the man couldn’t help it, he supposed.
“What kind of the worst?” Human suffering was very far from the celluloid man’s mind, he dusted off the wrinkles in his suit shoulder delicately with the flat of his gray palm and he thought of bad habits, a little distractedly. “I’m sure you don’t intend to.” Driving very fast was one of his, and the slide of dirty feet inside clean sheets when he was too tired to bother. He was not the most sinful of men but the pocket square gleamed gray-bright from his breast - he was an era of church on Sundays.
He put a comforting hand on the bared shoulder. “I’ve nothing at all to worry about.” It was a lie but one as comfortingly easy as the gesture and it sounded true. The poor chap had enough to worry about without his shirt to think of bringing out the worst in anyone at all.