"Well," whispered the woman eagerly.
"And I have the kettle on the boil, and I am going to put those red herrings in it for my tea." He was looking with vacant blue eyes down the street as he spoke. He did not lay stress upon the words, "I have the kettle on the boil." He uttered them in a lower tone and more slowly than any others. The emphasis thus given them was very great. It seemed to startle the woman. She rose partly as if to go to him. She was fluttered and agreeably fluttered.
"Stay where you are," he said. He seemed to know she had attempted to rise without turning his eyes upon her. She was half hidden in the gloom of the store. No casual observer passing by would have noticed her. She was simply a black shapeless mass on the old fire-grate against a dingy dark wall in a half light. She might easily be taken for some of Timmons's stock.
"And," she said, "he'll do it!"
"He will. He's been to Birmingham and has arranged all. They'll take every bit they can get and pay a good price--twice as much as could be got otherwise--from anyone else."
"Fine! Tine! You know, Mr. Timmons, how hard it is to find a bit now, and to get so little for it as we have been handling is very bad--heartbreaking. It takes all the spirit out of Tom."
"Where did you buy the six herrings?"
"Well," said the woman, with a smile, "I didn't exactly buy them herrings, though they are as good ones as ever you saw. You see, my little boys went to the meeting about the votes, or the Niggers, or the Gospel, or something or other, and they found the herrings growing on the trees there, ha-ha-ha."
"I know. It was a meeting for trying to get some notion of Christianity into the heads of the African Blacks. I read about it in the newspaper this morning. The missionaries and ourselves are much beholden to the Blacks."
"It was something now I remember about the Blacks. Anyway, they're six beauties. And can you let me have a little money, Mr. Timmons, for I must hurry back to Tom with the good news."