Bride Roses
SCENE
A Lady, entering the florist's with her muff to her face, and fluttering gayly up to the counter, where the florist stands folding a mass of loose flowers in a roll of cotton batting: "Good-morning, Mr. Eichenlaub! Ah, put plenty of cotton round the poor things, if you don't want them frozen stiff! You have no idea what a day it is, here in your little tropic." She takes away her muff as she speaks, but gives each of her cheeks a final pressure with it, and holds it up with one hand inside as she sinks upon the stool before the counter.
The Florist: "Dropic? With icepergs on the wintows?" He nods his head toward the frosty panes, and wraps a sheet of tissue-paper around the cotton and the flowers.
The Lady: "But you are not near the windows. Back here it is midsummer!"
The Florist: "Yes, we got a rhevricherator to keep the rhoces from sunstroke." He crimps the paper at the top, and twists it at the bottom of the bundle in his hand. "Hier!" he calls to a young man warming his hands at the stove. "Chon, but on your hat, and dtake this to—Holt on! I forgot to but in the cart." He undoes the paper, and puts in a card lying on the counter before him; the lady watches him vaguely. "There!" He restores the wrapping and hands the package to the young man, who goes out with it. "Well, matam?"
The Lady, laying her muff with her hand in it on the counter, and leaning forward over it: "Well, Mr. Eichenlaub. I am going to be very difficult."
The Florist: "That is what I lige. Then I don't feel so rhesbonsible."
The Lady: "But to-day, I wish you to feel responsible. I want you to take the whole responsibility. Do you know why I always come to you, instead of those places on Fifth Avenue?"