nd off things she starts
out to do," remarked Price. The rattle of the oscillating petticoats
had distracted his own mind from a nice calculation as to the amount
of a bill for a fractional amount of citron at a fractional increase
in the market-price. The old clerk was about to send a cost slip with
some goods to be delivered to a cash customer.

"Yep," responded Sam Riggs. "I should think she'd git rattled with
sech a rattlin' of her petticoats." The boy regarded this as so
supernaturally smart that he actually blushed with modest
appreciation of his own wit, and tears sprang to his eyes when he
laughed. But when he glanced at his fellow-clerk, Price was
calculating the cost of the citron, and did not seem to have noticed
anything unusual in the speech. Riggs, who was easily taken down,
felt immediately humiliated, and doubtful of his own humor, and
changed the subject. "Say," he whispered, jerking his index-finger
towards the office door, "you don't suppose she is settin' her cap at
the boss, do you?"

"Well, I guess she'd have to take it out in settin'," replied the old
clerk, in scorn. He had now the price of the citron fixed in his
head, and he trotted to the standing desk at the end of the counter
to enter it.

"I guess so, too," said Riggs. "Guess she'd have to starch her cap
stiffer than her petticoats before she'd catch him." Again Riggs
thought he must be funny, but, when the other clerk did not laugh,
concluded he must have been mistaken.

The conference in the office was short, and Price had hardly gotten
the slip made out when Madame Griggs emerged. Indeed, she had not
accepted Anderson's proffer of a chair.

"No," said she, "I can't set down. I 'ain't got but a minute. Two of
my girls is went on their vacation, an' I 'ain't got nobody but
Bessie Starley, an' I've promised Mis' Rawdy she should have her new
silk skirt before Sunday to wear to Coney Island. Mr. Rawdy has made
so much on hiring his carriages for the weddin' that he has bought
his wife a new black silk dress, an' now he is goin' to take her to
Coney Island Sunday, and hire the Liscom boy to take his place
drivin'. Now what I come in here for was--" Madame Griggs lowered her
voice; she drew nearer Anderson, and her anxious whisper whistled in
his ear. "What I want to know is," said she, "here's Mr. Rawdy, an' I
hear the caterer, were paid in advance, an' Blumenfeldt was paid the
day after the weddin', an' I ain't, an' I wonder if I'm go