“Monsieur!” implored the woman, lifting the flowers to the face of that one of “our boys” nearest me.
He shook his head with a smile,—being American, and a gentleman—gave a look at her pinched visage and poor garments, and his hand moved toward his pocket.
“I don’t want them, you know!” to me. “But—” another merciful glance.
“Combien?” I said to the woman.
She had, in my hearing, asked the Anglo-Indian to give her half a franc for the bunch.
She now protested that the three Edelweiss were cheap at five sous (cents) each, and the three Alpine roses should go as a bargain to “le beau Monsieur” at three cents a piece.
“You are a cheat—and a very foolish one!” I said. To my young friend—“American sympathy is a marketable commodity over here. Only, he who gives it, pays in current coin her who receives it.”