“Is that the way you buy tacks?” asked Don, as they reached the street.
Tompkins did not answer, but headed for Parker’s, a few doors above.
Here also was but a single salesman, a tall young man with a thin mustache and a circle of baldness on the top of his head, who was sorting screws behind the counter. Donald again remained near the door, but this time gave no heed to the showcase, while Tompkins strode defiantly up to the waiting clerk.
“Do you keep tacks?”
The clerk rested his hands on the counter, looked quizzically into the solemn face confronting his, then glanced at the boy standing near the door, who was already tittering in expectancy.
“No, we don’t keep tacks and we don’t sit on them!” he answered, smiling and clipping his words short. With the last word he swung his arm suddenly forward and sent Tompkins’s hat spinning among the nail kegs.
This was too much. Tompkins emitted a whoop and sprang for the nearest weapon, which happened to be a pitchfork. Holding this before him, as a soldier would hold a bayonet for a charge, he shouted:—
“Come on, you blamed counter-jumper, and I’ll spear you like an eel! You pick up that hat and pick it up quick, or I’ll put three holes through you that I can see through. They shoot men for smaller things than that out in my country. Pick up that hat, do you hear!”
As the clerk looked into those blazing eyes and saw the tines brandished before his nose, the jocose mood suddenly abandoned him. He ran round the counter, picked up the hat, brushed it with his sleeve, and handed it back to the ferocious knight of the pitchfork.
“I didn’t mean anything, really I didn’t,” he said humbly. “I thought you were joking, especially as you came in with that fellow—that gentleman there. Do you want some tacks? What size, eights?”