Hal walked into the next room without a word, more annoyed and chagrined than at anything that had happened since he had been in the store. He had made a great mistake and there was no getting over it, and he had sufficient pride in Fenimore & Co. to feel sorry enough at the best; but the junior being so disturbed about it made the matter worse. However there was no use fretting, and perhaps he should find something in the next room to help him forget it.
Yes there was something sure enough. Tom had got hold of an equally desirable customer, and was making a great swing with him. His spirits were rising tremendously, and by the time he had finished his sale he had forgotten that anything disagreeable had ever happened in the course of his life.
“Who was that?” asked Hal.
“A man from Illinois,” said Tom, “and a pretty good thing we’ve made of it too.”
“Let me see the bill,” said Hal, and he ran his eye over it.
“Look here,” he exclaimed, putting his finger on a point in the list where Tom’s pride was particularly centred, “you didn’t sell him those goods at the price marked here, did you?”
“Of course I did; why not?”
“Why not?” asked Hal, with the sting of the old sneer made sharper than ever by the freshness of his own annoyance, “no reason in the world that I know of, except that it is five cents a yard less than we paid for them.”
Tom stood aghast, and his tongue seem fast to the roof of his mouth. His first week in the salesroom, and a blunder like that! Should he be sent down again in disgrace, or only left to feel as if he ought to be?
Hal’s own trouble went clear out of sight, and he laughed a most exasperating laugh that Tom was only too familiar with.