"Which? I hope you don't mean any disrespect to the flag of your
country, ma'am?"
"No sir; I mean handkerchiefs," said Nannie, innocently.
"Ah! yes, I understand. I think we have the article in question."
A number of the red and yellow silks were produced, and while the brown
eyes scanned them in some perplexity, the mischievous young clerk
surveyed the comical little figure before him, and gravely asked:
"Is that quantity sufficient for the exercise of your predilections? or
would you like an additional supply?"
"I would like 'leven cents worth," stammered Nannie.
"Eleven cents worth of silk handkerchiefs? That's a novelty now!"
laughed the boy. "Why, you see that wouldn't be a seventh part of one
of these bits of magnificence,--not a scrap large enough for a
respectable doll. We really couldn't do it, ma'am. The owner of this
establishment has a nonsensical way of always selling his handkerchiefs
whole."
[Illustration: "'SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS APIECE,' SAID THE OLD GENTLEMAN."]
Then, at sight of the disappointed little face, his fun yielded to an
impulse of kindness, and from a far-away corner he produced an old box
with the dust of disuse lying thickly upon it.
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