The affable young woman returns, and with a glance at Eugen that speaks of worlds beyond colored stockings, proceeds to untie a packet and display her wares. He turns them over. Clearly he does not like them, and does not understand them. They are striped; some are striped latitudinally, others longitudinally. Eugen turns them over, and the young woman murmurs that they are of the best quality.
“Are they?” says he, and his eyes roam round the shop. “Well, Sigmund, wilt thou have legs like a stork, as these long stripes will inevitably make them, or wilt thou have legs like a zebra’s back?”
“I should like legs like a little boy, please,” is Sigmund’s modest expression of a reasonable desire.
Eugen surveys them.
“Von der besten Qualität,” repeats the young woman, impressively.
“Have you no blue ones?” demands Eugen. “All blue, you know. He wears blue clothes.”
“Assuredly, mein Herr, but of a much dearer description; real English, magnificent.”
She retires to find them, and a young lady who has been standing near us turns and observes:
“Excuse me—you want stockings for your little boy?”
We both assent. It is a joint affair, of equal importance to both of us.