United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The beauty of the room; the charm of Masie's costume; Kling's generosity; and last, O'Day's bearing and appearance as he led the child through the stately dance, looking, as Kitty expressed it, "that fine and handsome you would have thought he was a lord mayor," were now her daily topics of conversation.
O'Day, and please get into it and there's a jar full of tobacco, and if you haven't got a pipe of your own you'll find a whole lot of corncobs on the mantelpiece and you can help yourself." O'Day had stood smiling at the painter, Masie's hand fast in his, Fudge tiptoeing softly about, divided between a sense of the strangeness of the place and a certainty of mice behind the canvases.
Kling, gently freeing himself from Masie's hold, stared at his clerk. "Dot vill cost a lot of money, don't it?" "No, I do not think so." "Vell, who is coming? De childer all around?" "Everybody is coming big, little, and middle-sized," answered Felix. The cat was all out of the bag now. "Vell, dot's vot I said. You don't can get someting for nodding. You must have blenty to eat and drink." "No.
And then, with Jane Hoggson's help, he put on Masie's own hat and coat, which Ganger had hung on an easel, and Masie called Fudge from his mouse-hole, and Felix shook hands first with Nat and then with Sam, and last of all with Jane, who looked at him askance out of one eye as she bobbed him half a courtesy.
Once she had folded her wings and her cool hand had closed about his own. At the Biggest Store the next day Masie's chum, Lulu, waylaid her in an angle of the counter. "How are you and your swell friend making it? she asked. "Oh, him?" said Masie, patting her side curls. "He ain't in it any more. Say, Lu, what do you think that fellow wanted me to do?"
I vish sometimes you look around for more chairs like dot." Felix nodded in assent, reading the Dutchman's obstinate mind in the shopkeeper's sudden return to business questions. If Masie's future was to be helped, another hand than his own must be stretched out. He turned on his heel, and was about to regain his chair, when Otto, craning his head, called out: "Dot's Father Cruse comin' in.
And not only the neighbors, but Nat Ganger and Sam Dogger accepted. Felix had gone down himself with Masie's message, and they both had said they would come Sam to be on hand half an hour before the appointed hour of nine so as to serve as High Lord of the Robes, Masie having determined that nobody but "dear old Mr. Dogger" should show her how to put on the costume he had given her.
That is the shopgirl smile, and I enjoin you to shun it unless you are well fortified with callosity of the heart, caramels and a congeniality for the capers of Cupid. This smile belonged to Masie's recreation hours and not to the store; but the floorwalker must have his own. He is the Shylock of the stores. When he comes nosing around the bridge of his nose is a toll-bridge.
"And now for Masie's idea, Mr. Kling." "Oh, dere is someting else, eh? I tought dere vould be ven you puts your two noddles togedder Vell, vot is dot all about, eh?" "She is to have a birthday. She will be eleven years old next Saturday." "By Jeminy, yes, dot's so! I forgot dot, Masie. Yes, it comes on de tventy-fust. Vy you don't tell me before, little Beesvings?"
Sam didn't come out, and didn't intend to. He was busy with the child's curls, which were bunched up in the fingers of one hand, while the other was pressing the wide leghorn hat into the precise angle which would become her most, the Gossburger standing by with the rest of the costume, Masie's face a sunburst of happiness. "And now the long skirt, Mrs. Bombagger, or whatever your name is.
Word Of The Day