"All growed up and flew away," Mrs. Duryea replied. "What are you doing around here?"
Max's eyes twinkled mischievously.
"I'm selling goods for Mr. Green here," he declared. "Let's see, Hattie. Forty-two bust, I should say."
He snatched a garment from a rack near by.
"Here's a coat, Hattie, that would stand you in forty dollars in Syracuse," he said. "One of those big dry-goods stores there figures on a coat like this: garment, wholesale, twenty dollars; running a big store with elevators, electric lights and all modern improvements, ten dollars; advertising, five dollars; profit, five dollars—total, forty dollars. We figure here: cost of garment, twenty dollars; store expenses, fifty cents; profit, four dollars and fifty cents; total, twenty-five dollars. Put it on, Hattie, and let's see how you look in the garment."
"Well, I declare!" Mrs. Duryea exclaimed as she allowed herself to be assisted into the garment. "You take my breath away."
Max stepped back to survey the effect; and if the admiration expressed in his face was simulated, at least the friendliness of his smile was not.
"Now, Hattie, I want to tell you something," he declared: "If any one would say to me that I went to school with you I'd think they had a bad memory. I'd tell 'em it was your mother that sat next to me in Miss Johnson's room and not you."
Mrs. Duryea fairly beamed as she strutted up and down the store.
"Well, Max," she said at last, "let me bring my friend Mis' Williams in this afternoon and we'll decide on it then."