lves with bold
curvature.

With spring sunshine even hot against the steel rails of Winchester
Road, and awnings drawn against its inroads into the window display,
Mrs. Shila Coblenz, routing gloom, reached up tiptoe across the
haberdashery counter for the suspended chain of a cluster of bulbs, the
red of exertion rising up the taut line of throat and lifted chin.

"A little light on the subject, Milt."

"Let me, Mrs. C."

Facing her from the outer side of the counter, Mr. Milton Bauer
stretched also, his well-pressed, pin-checked coat crawling up.

All things swam out into the glow. The great suspended stud; the
background of shelves and boxes; the scissors-like overalls against the
wall; a clothes-line of children's factory-made print frocks; a
center-bin of women's untrimmed hats; a headless dummy beside the door,
enveloped in a long-sleeved gingham apron.

Beneath the dome of the wooden stud, Mrs. Shila Coblenz, of not too
fulsome but the hour-glass proportions of two decades ago, smiled, her
black eyes, ever so quick to dart, receding slightly as the cheeks
lifted.

"Two twenty-five, Milt, for those ribbed assorted sizes and reenforced
heels. Leave or take. Bergdorff & Sloan will quote me the whole mill at
that price."

With his chest across the counter and legs out violently behind, Mr.
Bauer flung up a glance from his order-pad.

"Have a heart, Mrs. C. I'm getting two forty for that stocking from
every house in town. The factory can't turn out the orders fast enough
at that price. An up-to-date woman like you mustn't make a noise like
before the war."

"Leave or take."

"You could shave an egg," he said.

"And rush up those printed lawns. There was two in this morning,
sniffing around for spring dimities."

"Any cotton goods? Next month this time, you'll be paying an advance of
four cents on percales."

"Stocked."

"Can't tempt you with them wash silks, Mrs. C.? Neatest little article
on the market to-day."

"No demand. They finger it up, and then buy the cotton stuffs. Every
time I forget my trade hacks rock instead of clips bonds for its
spending-money, I get stung."

"This here wash silk, Mrs. C., would--"

"Send me up a dress-pattern off this coral-pink sample for Selene."

"This here dark mulberry, Mrs. C., would suit you something immense."

"That'll be about all."

He flopped shut his book, snapping a rubber band about it and inserting
it in an inner coat pocket.

"You ought