She stopped laughing at once. “That’s the worst o’ talkin’ plain sense nooadays; folk think ye’re only coddin’,” she observed, good-humouredly. “I’m sorry I vexed ye.” Impulsively she held out her hand. “I doobt we’ll ha’e to shake again.”
This, also, was too much for Macgregor. He seized her fingers in a grip that made her squeal.
And just then bang went the bell above the door.
Christina bit her lip and smiled through her tears as M. Tod entered the shop.
“Anything else to-day?” she enquired in her politest voice, and placed the little parcel under Macgregor’s hand.
His reply was inaudible. His hand closed automatically on his purchase, his eyes met hers for the fraction of a second, and then he practically bolted.
“Young men are aye in sich a great hurry nooadays,” remarked M. Tod, beginning to remove her gloves.
“He’s the young man that bought the dizzen pencils the ither nicht,” Christina explained, examining the joints of her right hand. “I’ve just been sellin’ him anither dizzen.”
“Dearie me! he must be a reporter on yin of the papers.”
“He’s a whale for pencils, whatever he is,” Christina returned, putting straight the piles of periodicals that adorned the counter. “I doobt he wud need to report wi’ his feet forbye his han’s to get through a dizzen pencils in three days. It’s a bit o’ a mystery aboot the pencils.”