't tell anybody, Mr. Ginsburg, and I'll whisper you something.
Listen! I ain't back; I'm shooting porcelain ducks off the shelf in a
china shop."

"Ah, you're back again with your fun, ain't you? Miss Ruby--believe
me--I missed you enough. I bet you had a grand time at the farm!"

Mr. Ginsburg shook hands with her shyly, with a sudden red in his face,
and as if her fingers were holy with the dust of a butterfly's wings and
he feared to brush it off.

"Say, Mr. Ginsburg, you should have seen me! What I think of a shoe-tree
after laying all yesterday afternoon under a oak-tree next to a brook
that made a noise like playing a tune on wine-glasses, I'd hate to tell
you. Say, you're unpacking them ten-button welts, ain't you? Good! It
ain't too soon for the school stock."

Miss Cohn withdrew two super-long, sapphire-headed hat-pins from her
super-small hat, slid out of a tan summer-silk jacket, dallied with the
froth of white frills at her throat, ran her fingers through the flame
of her hair and turned to Mr. Ginsburg. Her skin was like thick cream
and smattered with large, light-brown freckles, which enhanced its
creaminess as a crescent of black plaster laid against a lady's cheek
makes fairness fairer.

"Well, how's business? I've come back feeling like I could sell storm
rubbers to a mermaid."

"You look grand for certain, Miss Ruby. They just can't look any
grander'n you. Believe me, I missed you enough! To-day it's cool; but
the day before yesterday you can know I was done up when I closed before
six."

"Can you beat it? And I was laying flat on the grass, with ants running
up my sleeves and down my neck and wishing for my sealskin--it was so
cool. I see Herschey's got cloth-tops in his windows. What's the matter
with us springing them patent-tip kids? Say, I got a swell idea for a
window comin' home on the train--lookin' at the wheat-fields made me
think of it."

"Whatta you know about that? Wheat-fields made her think of a shoe
window--like a whip she is--so sharp!"

"It's a yellow season, Mr. Ginsburg; and we can use them old-oak stands
and have a tan school window that'll make every plate-glass front
between here and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street look like a Sixth
Avenue slightly worn display."

"Good! You can have just what kind of a window you like, Miss Ruby--just
anything you--you like. After such a summer we can afford such a fall
window as we want. I see the Busy Bee's got red-paper poppie