“O yes, they are,” was the answer; “and some are very cheap indeed.”
“How much?” asked Ray, wondering.
“I have heard,” said the little blue man, “of people selling their manners for a piece of plum-cake.”
Ray was very quiet for several minutes, when he heard this. Suddenly he said, “Are the manners that you have to sell in those boxes?” (Ray pointed to the show-case, where several gaudy boxes stood in a row.)
“Yes,” replied the little storekeeper, “that is where I keep some of them.”
“And when people buy them, what do they do with them,” asked the boy.
“Well, my boy, they take them out of the boxes and put them on, very much as they do their clothes. These manners are very cheap, they are not the best kind, of course.”
“Where do you keep the best kind?” asked the child.
The little blue man’s face brightened. He walked behind the show-case and disappeared for a minute.
He returned with a very tiny box of no particular color. It was a sort of brownish green, but the shade was so quiet and restful to the eyes that one liked to look at it.