"Two threes!" called out one of the crowd, as he tried to get to the window.
"Hurry up!" cried another.
"There ought to be a separate window here for women," growled a third.
"Then it will take twelve cents?" she calmly queried, as she fumbled around for her purse.
"Yes."
"Well, I'd better pay it, I guess."
From one pocket she took two coppers. From her reticule she took a three cent piece. From her purse she fished out a nickel; and it was only after a hunt of eighty seconds that she got the twelve cents together. She then consumed four minutes in licking on the stamps, asking where to post the box, and wondering if there really was any writing inside,—but woman proposes and man disposes. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of business was being detained by a twelve-cent woman, and a tidal wave suddenly took her away from the window. In sixty seconds the thirteen men had been waited on and gone their ways, and the woman returned to the window, handed in the box, and said:
"Them stamps are licked on kind o' crooked, but it won't make any difference, will it?"