Get the money.”

“No,” I said, “but I will get a collar.”

I entered a furnishing and tailor shop around the corner. I asked for the proprietor. He showed me collars.

“Two for a quarter?”

“Yes.”

“Now I have here a little brochure I sell for twenty-five cents. In fact it is a poem, well worth the money. I will let you have it for half price, that is, one collar.”

“We are selling collars.”

“I am selling the poem.”

I turned my Ancient Mariner eye on him. I recited the most mesmeric rhymes.

He repeated, “We are selling collars.”