“That clerk he brought with him. Don’t know what his name is.”
“Does he know you?” Mark asked me.
“Don’t think I ever saw him but once,” I says.
“Well,” says Mark, “it’s about time you bought somethin’ at the t-t-ten-cent store. Take a quarter, Plunk, and spend it judicious. Take consid’able time to it, Plunk, and get friendly with the clerk. If you get curious you might ask a question or so. Good way would be to make b’lieve you thought the clerk was the boss. See? Then you could ask about the boss. Maybe this clerk is one of these t-t-talkative, loose-jawed fellers. Worth tryin’, anyhow. Might drag a crumb of information out of him.”
“And git hanged for a spy,” says I; but for all that I was glad to go. To tell the truth I was sort of tickled that Mark wanted me to go instead of going himself. It showed he had some confidence in me and thought I was sharp enough to do what he wanted.
I took a quarter and went across to the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store. The clerk was lazying around without much to do but look at himself in a little hand-glass. He had one of those little pocket-combs and he was busy with it, fixing his hair just so. It was kind of straw-colored hair with a wiggle to it. He had a kind of strawberry complexion and blue eyes and chubby cheeks. Sort of cunning, he was. I says to myself he ought to be entered in our beauty contest.
I went along the counter, looking at things, but he didn’t pay much attention. He got through with his hair and then began bringing up his mustache. It was a cute mustache. Yellow like his hair, it was, but you couldn’t see it from some directions. When the light was right on it, though, you got a good view. I kept getting closer and closer. When I was almost in front of him I dropped my quarter and had to go chasing after it. That attracted his attention away from his mustache.
“What’ll you have?” says he, crosslike.
“Oh,” says I, “dun’no’. I got a quarter to spend and I’m lookin’.”
“All right,” says he, “look.”