“Haw, haw, haw!” roared Raish. “Look at him! Don't he look like a bullfrog under a lily pad? Eh? Don't he now? Haw, haw, haw!”
Erastus Beebe joined in the laugh, but he shook his head.
“I've had that cap in stock,” he said, “since—well, since George Cahoon's son used to come down drummin' for that Boston hat store, and he quit much as eight year ago, anyhow. How did he ever come to pick THAT cap out, Raish?”
Mr. Pulcifer regarded the questioner with scornful superiority.
“Pick it out!” he repeated. “He never picked it out, I picked it out for him. You don't know the first principles of sellin', Ras. If you had me to help around here you wouldn't have so many stickers in your stock.”
Beebe, gazing after the retreating figure of Mr. Bangs, sniffed.
“If I had your brass, Raish,” he observed, calmly, “I'd sell it to the junk man and get rich. Well, maybe I won't have so many stickers, as you call 'em, if that little critter comes here often. What's the matter with him; soft in the head?”
“Isn't this his hat—the one he wore when he came in here?” queried Mrs. Jubal Doane, one of the two customers.
Mr. Beebe picked it up. “Guess so,” he replied. “Humph! I've seen that hat often enough, too. Used to belong to Cap'n Jim Phipps, that hat did. Seen him wear it a hundred times.”
Mrs. Becky Blount, the other customer, elevated the tip of a long nose. “Well,” she observed, “if Martha Phipps is lendin' him her pa's hats SO early, I must say—”