“Welcome,” he returned. “Too long you have deprived me of your instructive speech.”
“My speech is but a breath in my neighbour’s face. Will the Most Noble not lighten the hour with his voice?”
A party of women tourists came crowding in at that moment, picking at everything not under cover, pulling at the hanging gowns on the wall, stretching to see what was behind the cases. Tau Lot looked them over,—there were five—mentally tagging them with price-marks. The old woman was not worth her keep, the next younger little more, the two thin ones perhaps four hundred——.
“But the round one,” said Chow Loo, keen to see what the Bazar-man was thinking.
“Eight hundred, truly,” and the tasselled cap was gravely wagged.
“So I think, though her feet be as big as the feet of a Tartar woman.” They surveyed the attractive young lady with the judgment of merchants both.
“It nears the time for my going,” said Tau Lot, his Oriental dislike of coming to the point in business overweighed by the dread of wasting time that belonged to the pipe. “So what of the collect to-day?”
Chow Loo ran a hand into the pocket of his blue broadcloth breeches. “From Berkeley, where I led my contemptible way, eighteen dollars,—so much owed the washer of clothes. From Oakland, six, and the vender of vegetables sends his lowly greeting. But the Powder-man at Sather was as naked of coin as a robber. See—here is only a button from his coat!”
“The debt is owed since the Ninth Moon.”
“So I said—Yes, the round one would be worth fully eight hundred.” The attractive young lady had come closer, anxious for a near view of the Bazar-man. A clerk accompanied her, advancing at the farther side of the counter as she advanced, but taking no trouble to display his wares.