Now the small area bounded by Waverley Place, Christopher, West Fourth, and West Eleventh streets is also a law unto itself. The neighborhood is respectable and severely old fashioned, the houses large and comfortable, and the resident population almost entirely native New-Yorkers in moderate circumstances. A village, then, with its shops and school-houses and churches; it is as provincial in its way as the Lonelyville of the comic weeklies. The grocery is the village club, at least for the respectable part of the male population, the men who would not be seen in a corner saloon. There were half a dozen of the regulars now in the shop, seated on boxes and chairs around the stove, for it was a raw and chilly day. They looked up as I entered, but no one moved or spoke. Undoubtedly my man was in the group, but how to pick him out. I walked to the counter and addressed the young fellow who lounged behind it.
"Two pounds of the best butter, please."
"All out," was the unexpected reply.
"All out!" I repeated, stupidly.
"None of the best—that's what I said."
"I wanted a purple trading-stamp," I went on, helplessly.
"Anything over five cents' worth—jar of pickles, if you like."
"No, not that. Here, give me—how much are those cigars?"
"Five and ten."
"Ten cents, then."