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But the counter, facing the shelves of dress-goods for the women, is free of obstructions, and its surface is worn smooth and polished by the years of unrolling of bolts of cloth, while at every quarter-yard along the counter's rear edge is a shining brass tack-head the yardstick of the department. A pair of large shears swing prominently from an upright partition.
"I'm just so nervous that I can't put my finger upon it. You do it." "Nonsense!" said I. "If you don't find the ruby, it will never be found. That's the last one." At last, with shining eyes and parted lips, the little finger went slowly down upon the fateful tack-head. She screwed up her eyes and closed her lips tightly, as if she feared something would explode, then pushed with all her might.
The chorus of warnings was due to the fact that Aunt Lizzie already had fallen fourteen times in transit, a tack-head seeming sufficient to trip her up, and now, quite as though they had shouted the reverse, Aunt Lizzie stumbled and dropped the onyx apple upon old Mr. Penrose's felt-shod foot. This was too much. Mr. Penrose shouted furiously: "I wish you'd lose that damned thing!"
At once in the half-curtained doorway to the next room appeared a stocky little woman, whose pale face was made emphatic by large steel-rimmed glasses that shrank each eye-pupil to the size of a tack-head. Her worried forehead smoothed; she smiled. "I knew it was Mr. Joe," she said, "by the way those gals yelled." Joe spoke eagerly: "I just had to run in, Mrs. Rann, to ask how the baby was."
"I allus sez as you've got a dead eye fer the tack-head ev'ry time. But go easy, or the boss'll bar you on the slate." "Don't owe him nuthin'," growled Slum. "Which ain't or'nary in this company," observed the smiling Carney; he loved to get Slum angry. "Say, Shaky," he went on, "how do Slum fix you in his hotel? You don't seem bustin' wi' vittals."
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