“Penny or ha’penny,” murmured the girl at the desk.
“Penny or ha’penny?” demanded the mouse-like human being, almost pertly.
Men didn’t expect change out of a penny! “A penny yin,” said Macgregor with an attempt at indifference. He tried to look at the girl, but could not get his eyes higher than her elbow.
“A penny pencil!” The mouse-like human being assumed an expression suitable to a person who has just discovered the precise situation of the North Pole, but not the Pole itself.
“Top drawer on your left, Miss Tod,” whispered the girl at the desk.
“Quite so, Christina,” Miss Tod replied with dignity. There were times when she might have been accused of copying her assistant’s manners. She opened the drawer, which was a deep one, peered into it, groped, and brought forth three bundles of pencils. With sudden mildness she enquired of the girl: “These?... Those?”
“No; them!” said Christina, forgetting her grammar and grabbing the third bundle. “Wait a minute.” She slipped lightly from her stool and gently edged M. Tod from the position at the counter which had been familiar to the latter for five-and-thirty years. “This,” she said to Macgregor, laying the bundle in front of him, “is a special line. One dozen—price threepence.” She looked over his head in a manner suggesting that it was quite immaterial to her whether he purchased the dozen or faded away on the spot.
But he had his dignity too. Producing three pennies from two pockets, he laid them on the counter, took up the bundle of pencils, said “Thank ye” to nobody in particular, and marched out. Nor did he forget to close the door behind him.
The stationer and her assistant regarded each other for several seconds.
“Dae ye think,” said M. Tod slowly, “that that young man is a newspaper reporter?”