"Oh-h-h-h, God bless my soul!" she said.
Miss Josie Beemis, narrowly constricted between shoulders that barely sloped off from her neck, with arms folded flat to her flat bosom and her back a hypothenuse against the counter, looked up.
"Watch out, Loo! I read in the paper where a man up in Alton got caught in the middle of one of those gaps and couldn't ungap."
Miss Hassiebrock batted at her lips and shuddered.
"It's my nerves, dearie. All the doctors say that nine gaps out of ten are nerves."
Miss Beemis hugged herself a bit flatter, looking out straight ahead into a parasol sale across the aisle.
"Enough sleep ain't such a bad cure for gaps," she said.
"I'll catch up in time, dearie; my foot's been asleep all day."
"Huh!"—sniffling so that her thin nose quirked sidewise. "I will now indulge in hollow laughter—"
"You can't, dearie," said Miss Hassiebrock, driven to vaudevillian extremities, "you're cracked."