The door closed behind them with the dull thud which baize-muffled doors give, and it seemed to her sounded the knell of her “flowery hopes,” as she herself grimly expressed it.
“Well, I say, Bon! I did think you had some snap! What’d a feller do if he hadn’t no more grit’n a girl, I’d like to know? Here, come on, I’ll show you. Let’s go over to the hotel there. That’s the Fifth Avenue, where rich folks stays. I’ve sold papers for Jeemsy there, sometimes. They’s a decent crowd goes in an’ out. Mebbe they ain’t all so horrid stingy as they ’pear ter be on this side. But, Bon! We’ll have ter come down on the price. They ain’t nobody, ’less he’s jest another such old man as Mr. Brook, goin’ ter pay such a pile as that fer posies—second-hand ones, too.”
“Robert, where did you get all this wisdom, and you but eight?”
“Oh! I’ve been around,” said Robert, with an inimitable little swagger, which brought a fleeting smile to Beatrice’s face.
“All right. Let’s try the hotel, that is, if the people will let us. I think I have heard that the curbstone merchants—as we are now, dear—have each a self-appropriated place with which he allows nobody else to interfere. We may get upon somebody’s ‘stand,’ but if we do, from our morning’s experience, I don’t fear but we shall be so informed.”
They did take their places opposite the entrance to the hotel, and so respectable and quiet-looking were they that nobody molested them; and as they were the only flower-sellers upon that corner they did after a while exchange some of their wares for cash; but it was, as Robert had advised, at a great reduction, and Beatrice was heartily discouraged. Worse than that, a feeling of regret that she had undertaken this thing without her mother’s knowledge and consent began to trouble her as it had not done while the first enthusiasm of unselfishness lasted.
“I wish—I wish I had not slipped out of the house, as if I were doing something wrong!” murmured the girl, half aloud.
“Hey?” asked Robert. “Ain’t it getting cold? Ginger! My toes is ’most froze. This ain’t half the fun newspapers is. A feller can keep warm that way. He can jump on street-cars, and off when the conductor catches him. Let’s go home!”
“You go, dear, if you are cold. I am not. That is I—I— No, I will not give up beaten this way. I will sell these flowers if—”
“You can!” interjected Robert, just in time to prevent Bonny’s making a very rash vow.