"'YOU KNOW YOUR SIZE DOES COME IN DOZENS, ASSORTED,' CONTINUED THE JACK."
"No offense, I hope," said the Jack, looking somewhat abashed.
"No—not exactly," said Dorothy rather stiffly.
"You know, your size does come in dozens—assorted," continued the Jack, with quite a professional air. "Family of nine, two maids with dusters, and cook with removable apron. Very popular, I believe."
"So I should think," remarked Dorothy, beginning to recover her good nature.
"But of course singles are much more select," said the Jack. "We never come in dozens, you know."
"I suppose not," said Dorothy, innocently. "I can't imagine anybody wanting twelve Dancing-Jacks all at the same time."
"It wouldn't do any good if they did want 'em," said the Jack. "They couldn't get 'em,—that is, not in this shop."
Now, while this conversation was going on, Dorothy noticed that the various things in the shop-window had a curious way of constantly turning into something else. She discovered this by seeing a little bunch of yellow peg-tops change into a plateful of pears while she chanced to be looking at them; and a moment afterward she caught a doll's saucepan, that was hanging in one corner of the window, just in the act of quietly turning into a battledore with a red morocco handle. This struck her as being such a remarkable performance that she immediately began looking at one thing after another, and watching the various changes, until she was quite bewildered.
"It's something like a Christmas pantomime," she said to herself; "and it isn't the slightest use, you know, trying to fancy what anything's going to be, because everything that happens is so unproblesome. I don't know where I got that word from," she went on, "but it seems to express exactly what I mean. F'r instance, there's a little cradle that's just been turned into a coal-scuttle, and if that isn't unproblesome, well then—never mind!" (which, as you know, is a ridiculous way little girls have of finishing their sentences.)