Doc brought out the roast beef, proper service. The crock of mustard was on a breakfast plate, underlined with a doily, initials facing Jerry. The lid was on the mustard and it was clean, like it says in the book, and the little silver service spoon was clean and polished on a bread-and-butter plate. He set it down. And then he served the tea. You think you know the service, youngblood, all of you do. But you don’t. Anybody can serve, but not everybody can become a part of the service. When Doc poured that pot of hot tea into that glass of crushed ice, it was like he was pouring it through his own fingers; it was like he and the tray and the pot and the glass and all of it was the same body. It was a beautiful move. It was fine service. The iced tea glass sat in a shell dish, and the iced tea spoon lay straight in front of Jerry. The lemon wedge Doc put in a shell dish half-full of crushed ice with an oyster fork stuck into its skin. Not in the meat, mind you, but squarely under the skin of that lemon, and the whole thing lay in a pretty curve on top of that crushed ice.

Doc stood back and waited. Jerry had been watching his service and was impressed. He mixed the sugar in his glass and sipped. Danny Jackson and I were down the aisle in the hall. Uncle T. stood behind Jerry, bending over, his arms folded, waiting. And Doc stood next to the table, his tray under his arm, looking straight ahead and calm because he had given good service and knew it. Jerry sipped again.

“Good tea,” he said. “Very good tea.”

Doc was silent.

Jerry took the lemon wedge off the oyster fork and squeezed it into the glass, and stirred, and sipped again. “Very good,” he said. Then he drained the glass. Doc reached over to pick it up for more ice but Jerry kept his hand on the glass. “Very good service, Doc,” he said. “But you served the lemon wrong.”

Everybody was quiet. Uncle T. folded his hands in the praying position.

“How’s that?” said Doc.

“The service was wrong,” Jerry said. He was not smiling now.

“How could it be? I been giving that same service for years, right down to the crushed ice for the lemon wedge.”

“That’s just it, Doc,” Jerry said. “The lemon wedge. You served it wrong.”

“Yeah?” said Doc.

“Yes,” said Jerry, his jaws tight. “Haven’t you seen the new rule?”

Doc’s face went loose. He knew now that they had got him.

“Haven’t you seen it?” Jerry asked again.

Doc shook his head.