“Hm!” said the old man, giving her an extraordinarily shrewd glance from his little, good-humored eyes. “Important, is it?”
“Oh, very, very important!” said Billie.
She waited in an agony of impatience, of mingled hope and fear, while the old man removed one pair of spectacles and replaced them by another. Taking the bill in his hand he peered intently at it.
“A five dollar bill, eh—with a blot on it,” he ruminated. “Now, what’s to be made of that?”
For a long moment he appeared lost in thought, then, with a gesture of regret, pushed the bill across the counter toward Billie.
“Sorry I don’t seem to recollect——” Then, as Billie’s fingers reached for the bill: “Whoa there! Hold your horses! Sure, I know who give me that five dollars with the spot onto it.” The blue eyes twinkled and danced at Billie from between mounds of flesh. “’Twas Mrs. Maria Tatgood. That’s who ’twas!”
The interior of that quaint place reeled before Billie. She clung to the counter and heard her voice say faintly, joyfully:
“Has—has Mrs. Maria Tatgood been buying much of you lately?”
“Ho! That’s a queer question! But I’ll answer it honestly. That’s my way. Now you come to speak of it, Mrs. Tatgood has been buying quite a lot of me lately.”
“More than she used to?” Billie persisted.