“Let me see them, please.”
Two blue stamps were solemnly handed to her, and the crowd began to hope that at last she was suited.
“Ah, that will do,” she said, as she took up the one-cent stamps and eyed them as if they were samples of dress goods. “I like that shade better. I’ll take only one, if you please.”
And she handed the other back to the clerk, who took it mechanically, but managed to add:
“If it’s for a letter you’ll need two. These are one-cent stamps and letter postage is two cents per ounce.”
“Oh, I don’t want to put two stamps on my letter,” she said; “I don’t think they will look well.”
“It requires two cents to carry a letter, madame, and you must either put a two-cent stamp on or two ones. It won’t go without. And I must ask you to please hurry, for you are keeping a great many people away from the window.”
“That’s singular. I don’t like the look of two together. You are sure the other doesn’t come in seal brown, or”—
“No!” thundered the clerk, getting very red in the face.
“Then I’ll have to see if I can’t suit myself elsewhere.”