"Exactly," returned the Unwiseman. "I felt very badly on my way back home, too. I had hoped that the hatter wanted to employ me as a demonstrator."
"A what?" cried Whistlebinkie.
"A demonstrator."
"A demonstrator," repeated the Unwiseman. "A demonstrator is one who demonstrates—a sort of a show-man. In the hat business he would be a man who should put on new styles of hats so as to show people how people looked in them. I suggested that to the hatter, but he said no, it wouldn't do. It would make customers hopeless. They couldn't hope to look as well in his hats as I would, and so they wouldn't buy them; and as he wasn't in the hat trade for pleasure, he didn't feel that he could afford a demonstrator like me."
"And what did you do then?" asked Mollie.
"I was so upset that I got on board of a horse-car to ride home, forgetting that the horse-cars all ran the other way and that I hadn't five cents in my pocket. That came out all right though. I didn't have to walk any further," said the Unwiseman. "The conductor was so mad when he found out that I couldn't pay my fare that he turned the car around and took me back to the hatter's again, where I'd got on. It was a great joke, but he never saw it."
And the Unwiseman roared with laughter as he thought of the joke on the conductor, and between you and me, I don't blame him.
"Well, I got home finally, and was just about to throw myself down with my head out of the window to weep when I had an idea," continued the Unwiseman.
"With your head out of the window?" echoed Mollie. "What on earth was that for?"