Logan wore a baker's cap and carried a tray hung from his neck and piled with his wares, which a placard set there among proclaimed to be "Homemade Caramel Taffy, Five a Bag." Whitney was assisting Logan to dispose of his wares.
The two stopped the five. "We haven't a show against the girls on the inside to sell anything," they said. "Buy from us."
"Five cents for a bag all around and forty cents left, five cents to get home and thirty-five cents for supper," from Hattie the calculator, who liked to keep things clear.
Five bags were being exchanged for five cents all around when an elderly gentleman came along. Negotiations with the five being held up while he was pressed to buy candy, he brusquely replied that he had no change.
Neither had Logan or Whitney, business having been brisker than they admitted. But they did not let that deter them from cornering the gentleman into a showdown. Nor did a two-dollar bill, when produced, bother them.
Whitney had heard the financial status of the five just outlined by Hattie, and did some creditable calculating himself. Like Hattie he was good at figures.
"You have five forties between you," he said. "You take the bill and let us have the change. You'll get it fixed all right when you get your suppers."
The party of five was loath but saw no way out of it. Held up, as it were, they reluctantly gave over their forty cents around and pinned their gazes anxiously on the two-dollar bill in the hand of the elderly gentleman.
He seemed no better pleased than they, showing indeed a degree of temper unbecoming under the circumstances and using language somewhat heated for a church fair.
"What in heaven's name do I want with caramel taffy without a tooth in my head that's my own?"