the dealer's code and the please-commit-a-crime kid
The dealers down where I buy it some of them make you call it Bob Hope when you call, in case anybody’s accessed the line. You’re supposed to ask is Bob in town. And if they have some they say “Hope springs eternal,” usually. It’s like a code. One kid makes you ask him to please commit a crime.
Context
The procurement folklore rendered from the buyer's side: the euphemism-code ("is Bob in town," "Hope springs eternal"), the paranoia that outlives most dealers, and the one kid who makes you incriminate yourself aloud before he'll sell. The comedy of the passwords sits on top of a real transaction economy — the same Allston snakes-in-a-trailer supplier who serves the theater crowd surfaces here too.