Betty hesitated. Certainly a stranger had no right to pry into the Tally-ho’s private affairs in this cool fashion, and yet, since they were doing well, what harm could there be in saying so? “We serve lunches as well as tea, you know,” she explained tentatively, “and next week we shall begin to serve dinners.”
Just then Lucile Eastman and a crowd of her friends, who had been occupying the stall named after Black Beauty, bore down upon Betty’s desk, laughing and chattering over their bill, which was to have been divided because the party was a “Dutch treat,” but which Nora had put all together by mistake, and summarily refused to change.
“Now jam is twenty cents,” Lucile was explaining, “and toast with cheese is fifteen, and not a single one of us had the right change. Please help us to get it right, Betty dear. Now you go first, Polly. You had sandwiches, and they’re twenty cents.”
Betty got them all straightened out at last, and by that time the party in Flying Hoof’s stall had finished too. But the gentleman, who had been fairly swept aside by the crowd of hurrying girls, waited patiently enough until they had gone, and then returned to Betty and the interrupted conversation.
“Well,” he began briskly, “I suppose you wouldn’t be branching out if you weren’t pretty prosperous.”
In spite of her annoyance, Betty smiled at his persistence. “I suppose not,” she admitted. “We have a gift department too.” She pointed to the table. “It’s pretty nearly stagnated ever since Christmas, but a new specialty for it, that we hope everybody will buy, will be here very soon. We’re taking orders now, from this sample.” She held out the ploshkin for him to see.
The gentleman shook his head scornfully. “None of that tomfoolery for me, thank you. But there’s money in it—I know that. Here’s ten cents for my tea. And here’s my card.”
Betty stared blankly from the bit of paste-board he had handed her to the gentleman whose name it bore. He was smiling a queer, disagreeable smile, as if, for some reason that she could not guess, he found her very amusing. When he had made sure that his name meant nothing to her, his smile widened.
“Don’t know who I am, eh? Got to feel pretty much at home in this barn, haven’t you? Feel a good deal as if you owned it, don’t you?”
Betty failed to see the connection between his first question and the other; but then, all his questions had been queer. “No,” she replied steadily, “I don’t know who you are, sir. I’m sorry, since you think I ought to. I’m very stupid about names. We don’t own this barn; we rent it. And—and I think I must ask you not to question me any more about our business. I am employed by the others. I can’t see how anything I have told you could do us any harm, but I don’t think it’s at all businesslike for me to discuss my employers’ affairs with you.”