“But, bless you!” cried he. “That’s nothing. I can raise a hundred and fifty easy enough on my house and pay it off again next winter, so there’s nothing to fuss about. And now, ma’am,” turning to Mrs. Appleby, and abruptly cutting off any further discussion of the topic, “now, ma’am, I’ll give you a little order for groceries, if you please—which was what I came in for.”
So saying, he took a scrap of paper out of his pocket and proceeded to read out item after item: flour and bacon, molasses and dried apples, a little tea and a great deal of coffee, and so on, and so on, until at last he crumpled up his list between his two big hands, saying:
“There! And we’ll top off with a gallon of coal oil, if you please.”
“Ah,” said the widow, laying down her pencil—she was a slight, nervous little woman—“I was afraid you’d come to coal oil presently. I haven’t a pint of it in the house.”
“Well, that’s a pity,” said her customer. “Then I suppose I’ll have to go down to Yetmore’s for coal oil after all.”
“Yes, Yetmore can let you have it, I know,” replied the widow, in a tone of voice which caused us both to look at her inquiringly.
“He’s got a barrel of it,” she continued. “A whole barrel of it—belonging to me.”
“Eh! What’s that?” cried Tom. “Belonging to you?”
“Yes. And he won’t give it up. You see, it was this way. I ordered a barrel from the wholesale people in San Remo, and they sent it up two days ago. Here’s the bill of lading. ‘One barrel coal oil, No. 668, by Slaughter’s freight line.’ The freighters made a mistake and delivered it at Yetmore’s, and now he won’t give it up.”