“I should like ter know why not? What yer givin’ us?” demanded Bonny’s “darling,” with all the roughness and assurance of a regular street gamin.
“Hush, dear! Here, let me take yours, too. You just step outside and wait for me till I come. I won’t be a minute now,” whispered the sister, persuasively.
But “Humpty-Dumpty’s” blood was up. What were stores for if not for people to enter? How did that unmannerly clerk know but that he, Robert, wanted to buy out all the stock piled upon those loaded counters? He’d show him! One man was as good as another, in this world.
“No, I won’t wait, neither. I’m a-goin’ where you go, an’ I’m goin’ ter stay as long as I like. Say, boss! How much fer them roses, yonder?”
“Clear out of here, you impudent little scalliwag! You wish to buy no roses.”
“No. But I wish to sell some chrysanthemums, sir,” interposed Beatrice, gently. “These flowers were purchased here yesterday. I should like to resell them to you.”
The dapper young man who had glanced admiringly at the pretty girl on the occasion of her previous visit, under Mr. Brook’s escort, now stared at her superciliously. “Bought here? Ah! Well, we never take second-hand goods, you know. And flowers are an article that could not be handled a second time, even if we did. Is that all?”
“But, sir, you told a lady, yesterday, that you could not supply the demand for this color. I have kept these very carefully. See? They are not withered in the least.”
“Impossible, Miss. If that boy belongs to you, you had better take him outside before he gets into any further mischief. He has knocked down a pile of baskets already, and if he damages—”
Poor Bonny did not wait to hear the conclusion of the matter. With a desperate fear at her heart that her small and independent brother would be the cause of some dreadful trouble, she seized him firmly by the collar and forced him before her out of the shop.