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We stood around in front of the desk drawing stares. The hall from the main door had thick carpeting, sconces for light on dark, paneled walls, and doors opening into restrooms on one side and the bar on the other. I was wrong about Wednesday. The place was buzzing with people. We waited. Time began to drag. Other parties came in and stood behind us. Two couples, well oiled to judge from their demeanor, came out of the bar and began to make remarks. “Do you always make fun of the handicapped?” I asked the chief offender, a young, crew-cut man with a head like a red pumpkin.

“I’m sorry,” he confessed, and burst out laughing. One of the women had the self-possession to pull him away. I glanced around nervously with all the acute discomfiture of one in a false position.

Simon David finally returned. “We don’t have any private rooms available,” he said in a voice meant to sound accommodating but final. I’m sure he didn’t have any to begin with, but that didn’t matter.

“That’s perfectly all right,” I said, meaning we would leave.

Ridley poked me with his stick and shook his head.

“I’ll be right with you folks,” Simon David said to the people in line behind us.

Well, we finally got seated. As unobtrusively as was possible under the circumstances, Simon — as he turned out to be — led us to a table more or less in the shadows next to the railing above the shimmering water. In a sotto voce aside to me, he said, “It … he is … housebroken?”

“He’ll be fine,” I assured him, and resisted an impulse to slip him a twenty.

“We will need three settings,” I said to the waiter, a gangly college youth with acne and an expression of earnest bemusement who had begun to remove two of the four place settings. I kept my voice as normal as I could. One couple had already gotten up and left. Simon watched nervously from the doorway. I was relieved when the moon slid behind a cloud, obscuring us momentarily.

“Are you expecting a third party?”

“We are a party of three,” I said, indicating Alphus, who had taken a seat with his back to the other customers. In for a penny and all that.

“I see. Or rather, I guess, I don’t see.”

“Mr. Alphus, our Seeing Eye … assistant, is also joining us.”

“Will he need a setting?”

“He will be joining us for dinner.”

“I see. I’m afraid it’s against health department regulations … to serve animals in the restaurant.”

“He is completely table-trained.”

“I see. Still …”

I closed my eyes as though that might dispel what I found to be a waking bad dream. I glanced in the direction of the distant, hovering Simon. “Could you ask Simon to step over here.”

As the other patrons watched more or less surreptitiously, the waiter went over and conferred with the co-owner. The co-owner was joined by the other co-owner, judging from appearances. I would guess they were having a tiff. David finally stalked off and Simon went after him.

The waiter returned alone, his demeanor struggling to achieve an air of decisiveness.

“I’m afraid it’s a no-go, sir. We aren’t even allowed to have cats in the kitchen. Your Seeing Eye … companion is welcome, but we won’t be able to serve it … him … food.”

“We watched the other night when a sight-impaired person fed his Seeing Eye dog inside a McDonald’s,” I said.

He shrugged. “Yeah, McDonald’s …” Then his demeanor changed markedly. I followed where he had glanced before shifting his attentions back to me. Ridley, pretending to fumble, had produced a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet.

“McDonald’s. Yes …”

The money changed hands with admirable covert deftness, and Alphus was presently inspecting a fine cloth napkin and the cutlery that came with it.

The other customers did gawk. And I felt a keen embarrassment, in part because of the ruse and also because of the way we were taking advantage of people’s better natures. Another couple at an adjoining table did get up abruptly and make their way toward the reception area. But all the others were soon back to their food and talk.

Our table, close to the railing along the water, was