THE LAST COAT

‘Mustn’t sit on the handrail,’ he said after getting in the lift and sitting on the handrail.
‘Yeh,’ I said, ‘you never know what you might sit on.’
The outside of the entrance door on the sixth floor was being painted and the man painting held it open for me.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
Later, on the way back in through the fourth floor the door was being painted by the same man and he held it open for me.
‘We must stop meeting like this,’ I said.
‘We will,’ he said, ‘this is the last coat.’