Mrs. Cane started perceptibly. "Boys?" she gasped.
"Why, yes; I'm sure that's what she said," returned Mrs. Potter. "But if you want to trace them, that silk slumber-robe ought to be a great help. There isn't another like it in this country. Picked it up in Paris, you know; soft, clingy silk crêpe in large checks of black and white, and the most gorgeous panne velvet border!"
This opportunity was too good for Mrs. Rice to overlook. She had personally handed out the lemon-colored shoes, and had recognized the solicitors beyond peradventure. "If you should inquire around among the victims, dearie," she drawled out with carefully stimulated lack of interest, "you might find somebody who could identify them."
At that moment the car drew up at the curb and came to a stop. Mrs. Cane glanced out and exclaimed, "What! Home already!— But what is the crowd? Oh, I hope our house isn't on fire!"
As she struggled hurriedly out of the limousine without waiting for the assistance of François, the other passengers craned their necks to see what the excitement was. And as they looked, a startling checkered device that was instantly recognized as Mrs. Potter's slumber-robe fluttered out over the heads of the jostling multitude, where it waved proudly for a moment, and was then gathered back into the hands of an individual standing on the top of a rudely constructed counter about which the crowd was clustered.
And as he spread the silken folds over his arm so that all might see it to better advantage, he began to cry out in the loud voice of an auctioneer:
"One dollar, one dollar, one dollar—one dollar, one dollar, one dollar—I am offered only one dollar for this be-e-eautiful garment that a certain rich lady—you all know her—bought in the large city of Rochester; I am offered only one dollar, one dollar, one dollar—she told me herself only this morning that it cost FIVE!—and yet I am offered only one dollar, one dollar, one dollar, ONE DOLLAR!—I will put it back in stock before I will sell it for such a ridic'lous figger. You don't know what you're missin'."
He slung it on a line stretched above his head, and turning to a corps of assistants who were waiting on a clamoring public (composed of neighborhood domestics and Italians from across the railroad tracks), sang out:
"Hand up something else, men! We must slaughter this stock to aid the sufferin' Belgiums! We must aid the dessolute Belgiums!"—and he held up a pink "wrapper."—"Now, what am I offered to start this to aid the dessolute—"
The crowd parted, and fell back on either side, opening up a passage for a woman in white who went rapidly towards the counter, in front of which she came to a stop.