“Just wait until she goes to lunch,” reflected Teddy wickedly, as, safely screened by a protecting wall of dishpans, he peered owlishly at the industrious Gobbler as she delved patiently in her stock.
Miss Newton, however, was in no great hurry to go to lunch. Engrossed in her task the minutes slipped by, and when at last she stalked majestically off in the direction of the time-desk, Teddy was called upon to go on an errand for Mr. Everett.
The instant he was free, he hurried down the aisle toward the hapless table, vengeance in his eye. “Maybe she won’t be mad, though,” he chuckled, as he paused before the rows of tinware and eyed the dividing space which separated the figurative sheep from the goats. “She won’t know what she’s counted and what she hasn’t, when I get through with ’em. She’ll think a customer did it. I’d just as soon tell her it was little Teddy that mixed ’em up, though.”
His hand slid out toward a pile of cake tins. Dividing it evenly, he lifted the upper half and was about to distribute it in picturesque confusion over the table, when a sudden cry of distress broke upon his ears, causing him to let the pile of pans to rattle back into place. Bearing down upon him came Miss Newton, but her hard face wore a look of dismay which was quite new to it.
“Oh, boy,” she shrieked, as she hurried toward him, “have you seen it? Help me look for it. Oh, I must find it!” She wrung her hands frantically, and to Teddy’s horror began to cry.
“What’s the matter?” asked Teddy sharply. The woman’s evident distress had driven all thought of mischief from his mind.
“Oh, oh!” she moaned. “I’ve lost my purse. It had all my salary in it. I just got paid this morning. I put it in my apron pocket. I’m sure I did. But it’s not there now. Oh, dear, what’ll I do? I haven’t paid my board, or my laundry, or anything!”
She searched frantically among the rows of tinware, peered up and down the narrow aisles, then dropped her head in her hands and lurching against the tinware table with a force that sent a pile of pie tins jingling to the floor, burst into noisy weeping.