Susan frowned.
"I don't like Mr. Tomlin, Joe."
"Never asked you to like him, but we can learn a lot from Tomlin. See? He's an expert upon Chinese and Japanese porcelain and lac. We've got to suck his brains."
"Ugh!" said Susan.
During these first few weeks she displayed great aptitude as a saleswoman. Her face, so ingenuous in its expression, her soft voice, her pretty figure attracted customers. The price of every article in the shop was marked in letters which she could turn into figures. But this price was a "fancy one," what Quinney termed a "top-notcher." Susan was instructed to take a third less. Quinney trained her to answer awkward questions, to make a pretty picture of ignorance, to pose effectively as the inexperienced wife keeping the shop during the absence of her husband. He had said upon the morning of the grand opening of Quinneys', "I don't want you to tell lies, Sue."
"I wouldn't for the world," she replied.
He pinched her chin, chuckling derisively. "I know you wouldn't; but I don't want you to tell all the truth neither."
"What do you mean?"
"This oak now. Me and you know it's new, but if a customer tells you it's old, don't contradict him. 'Twouldn't be polite. All you know about it is this—your clever hubby picked it up in France, in Brittany. See?"
She asked anxiously, "It won't be acting a lie, dear?"