ing of draper's assistant, a ruddy, red-haired lad
in a very short tailless black coat and a very high collar, who is
deliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne. By
twenty-one he too may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even as Mr.
Hoopdriver. Prints depend from the brass rails above them, behind are
fixtures full of white packages containing, as inscriptions testify,
Lino, Hd Bk, and Mull. You might imagine to see them that the two were
both intent upon nothing but smoothness of textile and rectitude of
fold. But to tell the truth, neither is thinking of the mechanical
duties in hand. The assistant is dreaming of the delicious time--only
four hours off now--when he will resume the tale of his bruises and
abrasions. The apprentice is nearer the long long thoughts of boyhood,
and his imagination rides cap-a-pie through the chambers of his brain,
seeking some knightly quest in honour of that Fair Lady, the last but
one of the girl apprentices to the dress-making upstairs. He inclines
rather to street fighting against revolutionaries--because then she
could see him from the window.

Jerking them back to the present comes the puffy little shop-walker,
with a paper in his hand. The apprentice becomes extremely active. The
shopwalker eyes the goods in hand. "Hoopdriver," he says, "how's that
line of g-sez-x ginghams?"

Hoopdriver returns from an imaginary triumph over the uncertainties of
dismounting. "They're going fairly well, sir. But the larger checks seem
hanging."

The shop-walker brings up parallel to the counter. "Any particular time
when you want your holidays?" he asks.

Hoopdriver pulls at his skimpy moustache. "No--Don't want them too late,
sir, of course."

"How about this day week?"

Hoopdriver becomes rigidly meditative, gripping the corners of the
gingham folds in his hands. His face is eloquent of conflicting
considerations. Can he learn it in a week? That's the question.
Otherwise Briggs will get next week, and he will have to wait until
September--when the weather is often uncertain. He is naturally of a
sanguine disposition. All drapers have to be, or else they could never
have the faith they show in the beauty, washability, and unfading
excellence of the goods they sell you. The decision comes at last.
"That'll do me very well," said Mr. Hoopdriver, terminating the pause.

The die is cast.

The shop-walker makes a note of it and goes on to Briggs in the
"dresses," the next