Bertha puckered her lips, whistled a few bars, and asked suddenly, “How about you, are you well fixed?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“It gives me the whole picture.”
Christopher Milbers, after deliberating for a moment, said cautiously, “I have a farm in Vermont. I make maple sugar and syrup, and sell by mail. I make a living, but I can’t say I do any more than that.”
“Your cousin a customer?”
“Yes, he bought his syrups from me. He liked maple sugar, but had that sent to his office rather than the house. From time to time I would send him samples of new confections I was putting out — sent him one, in fact, only last week. It’s so hard to think of him as not being still alive—”
“Large samples?”
“No. Definitely not. In selling sweets, one never sends enough to cloy the taste, only just enough to whet the sweet tooth.”
“Charge your cousin, or send him the stuff free?”
“I charged him regular list less thirty per cent. — and he always was careful to take off an additional two per cent for cash.”