“Not a thread of cotton in that,” was the clerk's reply.
“Not wan, but a good many, I'm thinkin',” retorted the Irish lady, as she helped her husband draw on the coat. It fitted tolerably well and Mike seemed mightily pleased with his transformation.
“Come,” said the wife. “What will ye take?”
“As it's you, I'll take off twenty-five cents,” replied the clerk.
“And sell it to me for two dollars?” inquired his customer, who had good cause for her inaccurate arithmetic.
“For two dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“Two dollars and seventy-five cents! It's taking the bread out of the childer's mouths you'd have us, paying such a price as that! I'll give you two twenty-five, an' I'll be coming again some time.”
“We couldn't take so low as two twenty-five, ma'am. You may have it for two dollars and a half.”
After another ineffectual attempt to get it for two dollars and a quarter, the Irish woman finally offered two dollars and forty-five cents, and this offer was accepted.
She pulled out a paper of change and counted out two dollars and forty cents, when she declared that she had not another cent. But the clerk understood her game and coolly proceeded to put the coat back on the pile. Then the woman very opportunely found another five-cent piece stored away in the corner of her pocket.