“Hey? Do what?”
“Ah—slap my back. I'd rather you wouldn't, if you don't mind. And—oh—I should like to see a—a cap or something.”
The last sentence was addressed to Mr. Beebe, who cleared his throat importantly.
“Jest a minute, jest a minute,” said Erastus. “Soon's I get through waitin' on these customers I'll 'tend to you. Jest a minute. Yeast cake, did you say, Mrs. Blount?”
“Ohh, pardon me,” faltered Galusha. “I'll wait, of course.”
“Wait?” It was Mr. Pulcifer who spoke. “You don't have to wait. I know Ras's stock as well as he does, pretty nigh. I'LL show you a cap, Mr. Bangs.”
“Oh—oh, I couldn't think of troubling you, really I couldn't.”
“No trouble at all. What's a little trouble amongst neighbors, eh? And that's what we are now—neighbors, eh? Sure, Mike! You and me are goin' to see a lot of each other from now on. There! There's a good, stylish cap, if I do say it. Try it on? What's your size, Perfessor?”
Five minutes later Galusha descended the steps of the Beebe store, wearing a cloth cap which was, to say the very least, out of the ordinary. Its material was a fuzzy frieze of nondescript colors, a shade of dingy yellow predominating, and its shape was weird and umbrellalike. With it upon his head little Galusha resembled a walking toadstool—an unhealthy, late-in-the-season toadstool.
The quartet in the Beebe store watched his departure from the windows. All were hugely amused, but one, Mr. Pulcifer, was hilarious.