Woodie slips the string from between his front teeth, puts a double knot scientific on the end of the package, and peers over his glasses out through the door. "That?" says he. "Oh, that's mine."
"Yours!" comes back Aunty. "And—and this store too?"
"Oh, yes," says he.
"Then—then your name is Wiggins?" she goes on.
"Yes," says he. "Don't you remember,—Woodie Wiggins?"
"I'd forgotten," says Aunty. "And all the other stores like this—how many of them have you?"
"Something less than a hundred," says he. "Ninety-six or seven, I think."
Most got Aunty's breath, that did; but in a jiffy she's recovered. "Perhaps," says she, "you don't mind telling me the reason for this masquerade?"
"It's not quite that," says Wiggins. "I try to keep in touch with all my places. In making my rounds to-day I found my local manager here too ill to be at work. Bad case of grip. So I sent him home, telephoned for a substitute, and while waiting took off my coat and filled in. Fortunate coincidence, wasn't it?—for it gave me the pleasure of serving you."
"You mean," cuts in Aunty, "that it gave you the opportunity of making me appear absurd. Those gowns I promised to send!"