Starting with one whip, which he offered for a dollar, and getting no takers at that price (for most of them had seen his operations before) he would offer two and then three and then four and at last half a dozen whips for the same dollar.
“An’ I’ll throw in this raw-hide just to make the game excitin’. Here, by George, I’m ashamed of myself to be such a poor business man as to give away fifteen dollars’ worth of whips for the price of one decent one, but I’m bound to make a sale if I give you my whole stock for a dollar. He-ere we have a bobby dasher of a whip to tickle the flies to death in the pantry. I’ll chuck that in just for devilment and I hope you won’t tell none of your folks what a fool I be. That’s eight whips for one ordinary every day dollar. Why it’s a crime to take advantage of me in this way and git so much for so little.
“Thank you, sir, for relievin’ me of an embarrassin’ situation.”
This to a long-bearded man who handed up a dollar and got the eight whips, one of which would have cost a dollar in any harness store. But that is not the same as saying that it would have been worth a dollar.
“Now, here we are again. Here’s a whip for one dollar.”
Naturally the zest of the transaction had departed with the long-bearded farmer and most of the crowd went away. But new ones came up and minute by minute the whip man added whip after whip and soon the crowd was as dense as before and he strenuously showed the swishing qualities of each whip, fanning the air with vigor and filling that part of the fair grounds with his syren voice and his picturesque language.
“Oh, you’re here, are you,” said a voice at my side, and turning I saw Sibthorp.
“Hello, where’s Cherry?” said I.
“I wanted to speak to you. Let’s get away from that clatter.”
I believe that Ethel must have divined what he wanted to say, for she said,