"Oh!" Tessie looked up at him with eyes full of wonder and admiration. "I do think you are the most wonderful man in the world! No one else would ever have thought of that!"
"Oh, I don't know," Mr. Bill murmured modestly. "But it might be true, you know."
"I'm sure it's true!" exclaimed Tessie eagerly.
[X]
Tessie really did not think much about Ka-kee-ta and his excited exclamations. She had too much to do to guess conundrums. Never was there a busier queen. The publicity the newspapers gave her brought new duties every day.
"You can't refuse," Norah Lee told her firmly. Norah had been loaned to the Sunshine Islands by the Evergreen and was taking her new work very seriously. "You want to advertise your kingdom, don't you? Make people know about it? I dare say there are thousands in Waloo this minute who have never heard of it, in spite of the corking stories the newspapers are giving you. Every one doesn't read every paper, and if you aren't in all the papers some people will miss knowing about you. It's your duty as a queen to make the Sunshine Islands the most talked about place in the world."
Put that way Tessie could not refuse, and she graciously permitted herself to be photographed and interviewed until every daily newspaper made a story of Queen Teresa and her islands as much a part of its daily routine as the sport page or the stock reports. "Our Queen," the Gazette proudly called her, because she had made her first appearance in the Gazette.
She kept her promise to Mr. Kingley, and with Ka-kee-ta—his ax polished to silver brightness—stood in the basement of the Evergreen behind the familiar counter stocked high with aluminum. She might be the same little Tessie at heart, but outwardly there was a vast difference. She looked like a princess playing at being a salesgirl for her gown was of black silk crepe instead of cheap sateen, her hair was done in the simple fashion approved by Miss Morley, and at Mr. Kingley's request around her neck hung the Tear of God in its fiber lace. No one scolded her if she made a mistake. Indeed, Mr. Kingley had craftily minimized her chance to make a mistake by decreeing that she should only take the order and hand the parcel to the purchaser, the other girls could make out the sales-slips. And the basement was mobbed with purchasers.