She stood behind
her counter in the Biggest Store; and as you closed your hand over
the tape-line for your glove measure you thought of Hebe; and as you
looked again you wondered how she had come by Minerva's eyes.
When the floorwalker was not looking Masie chewed tutti frutti; when
he was looking she gazed up as if at the clouds and smiled wistfully.
That is the shopgirl smile, and I enjoin you to shun it unless you
are well fortified with callosity of the heart, caramels and a
congeniality for the capers of Cupid. This smile belonged to Masie's
recreation hours and not to the store; but the floorwalker must have
his own. He is the Shylock of the stores. When he comes nosing around
the bridge of his nose is a toll-bridge. It is goo-goo eyes or "git"
when he looks toward a pretty girl. Of course not all floorwalkers
are thus. Only a few days ago the papers printed news of one over
eighty years of age.
One day Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, traveller, poet,
automobilist, happened to enter the Biggest Store. It is due to him
to add that his visit was not voluntary. Filial duty took him by the
collar and dragged him inside, while his mother philandered among the
bronze and terra-cotta statuettes.
Carter strolled across to the glove counter in order to shoot a
few minutes on the wing. His need for gloves was genuine; he had
forgotten to bring a pair with him. But his action hardly calls for
apology, because he had never heard of glove-counter flirtations.
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