"A couple of sailors, with the ague," soliloquized the clerk, snatching up his hat and fanning himself vigorously, when he thought how near sweltering he would be if he was bundled up like that.
The customers stood in the middle of the floor, looking about them with every expression of curiosity, like country fellows who had just come out of their native woods, while Johnny leaned one elbow on the counter and waited for them to make known their wants.
"Where's the boss?" inquired one of them at length.
"Do you mean Mr. Henry? He has gone home."
"Will he be back to-night?"
Johnny replied that he would not.
There was another long pause, during which the men gazed about the store, and appeared to be examining every article of merchandise in it, and finally one of them walked up to the counter, while his companion strolled toward the little office where Johnny slept. He first looked at the clerk, as if trying to recognize an old acquaintance in him, and asked: "Got any pipes?"
"Plenty of them, sir," was the prompt reply. "We have a fine assortment, that was just received from Boston this morning."
Johnny thought he had by this time become well enough posted in his business to tell, by the appearance of his customers, what quality of goods they wanted. He thought this man was a common sailor, and he put out for his inspection a box of cheap clay pipes. The man took his hands out of his pockets to examine the pipes, and Johnny saw that they were fair and white, looking very unlike the brown, toil-hardened hands of a sailor.
"He must be a captain," thought the clerk. "If he is, he wants something better than a clay pipe. Here are some genuine imported meerschaums, in the showcase, sir," said he.