“I want nothing,” growled Tompkins, lowering the fork. “I wouldn’t buy a rivet in this place if you’d give me the whole store and throw in the clerks to sweep up and open the nail kegs. Come on, Don!”
“Pick up that hat, do you hear!”—Page 118.
“I’m learning fast,” declared Donald, on the sidewalk, after several vain efforts to control his laughter so as to make himself intelligible. “What’s the next lesson going to be?”
Tompkins was too busy thinking to pay attention to poor jokes. “You stay out of the next store—do you hear?” he said threateningly.
At Cutler’s, Tompkins merely put his head inside. The clerk sat in a chair near the door, passing the noon hour in idleness. Tompkins held up a coin.
“I’ve five cents or ten cents or a quarter or whatever is necessary, and I’d like to buy a paper of tacks. If you can sell me some without hitting me or calling me names, I’d like to come in and buy. There’s something queer about the tack business in this town.”
“I think I can,” replied the man, good-naturedly. “Come in.”
As the salesman produced the laboriously sought tacks, Donald, whose curiosity was beyond control, opened the door and slipped in.
“You keep out!” cried Tompkins, warningly.