not to talk to their gentlemen friends during working hours. Before nine and after half-past five they could do as they pleased, but from nine until half-past five they could only talk to customers.[Pg 10] And this man with Tessie Gilfooly had not bought so much as a dish mop. He had not even asked to see any aluminum. Mr. Walker knew. It was outrageous!

[Pg 10]

But before he could swoop down on Tessie and tell her just how outrageous it was another man approached the table on which aluminum saucepans were so attractively arranged and behind which Tessie was standing with a white face and big, unbelieving eyes. If she let go of the table Tessie knew she would fall right to the floor.

This newcomer was as strange a figure as Mr. Walker had ever seen in the basement of the Evergreen. He was short and fat and with a skin that was not brown nor yellow nor red, but an odd blending of the three colors. He wore a loose blue denim blouse and trousers which flapped about his bare feet. But it was his head which made Mr. Walker's eyes bulge, for only in the pages of the National Geographic Magazine, which he looked at every month in the employees' rest-room, had Mr. Walker ever seen such a head. The coarse black hair was frizzed and stiffened until it stuck straight out from the scalp and was adorned with shells. The man's nose was tattooed in red and blue and a string of shells hung around his neck. Altogether he was the strangest figure Mr. Walker had ever seen in the department, and he wondered what on earth he would buy. He looked like a foreigner of some sort.[Pg 11] Mr. Walker was taking a course in business psychology in the Evergreen night school, and he saw the advantage of the study now as he quickly labeled the stranger a native of some foreign country.

[Pg 11]

The native walked up to Tessie and raised his hand authoritatively. "Miss Teresa Gilfooly?" he said in a lisping voice and with a strange intonation which made Tessie step back and stare at him.

She nodded. She simply could not speak.

"Queen Teresa!" murmured the native rapturously. He fell on his knees before Tessie and pressed the hem of her short skirt to his forehead. "Queen Teresa!" he boomed, and his head touched the floor beside Tessie's shabby little pumps.

If Tessie was startled you can imagine Mr. Walker's surprise. He started forward with righteous indignation. He would not have such 

 Prev. P 7/184 next