HALF the time I don’t trouble to look up at them, especially when I
happen to be busy. They put their money underneath the brass wire; they
ask for what they want; it’s given to them, and off they go. If any
other plan was adopted we should never get through the work at our
office, and there would be complaints to answer, and the superintendent
might send some one along to kick up a row. As Miss Maitland says, when
all the customers are made on one pattern everything will be much easier
to manage; meanwhile we can’t do better than to do the best we can, and
to recognise that some are in a hurry, some are just the reverse.
“Above all,” mentioned Miss Maitland, when I first came here, “no
carrying on across the counter with young gentlemen.”
“When you’ve known me longer, Miss Maitland,” I said, “you’ll see how
unnecessary it is to make a remark like that.”
“I’m only warning you for your own good.”
“I can behave myself,” I said, “as well as most girls. The fact that I’m
a bit above the average in regard to looks—”
“Is that really a fact?” inquired Miss Maitland.
The very queer thing about it all was that he came in on the afternoon of
the very second day I was there. I was having an argument about a
halfpenny with a lady sending a telegram, and she said that she always
understood we were well paid, and if that was true we ought not to try to
make anything extra. I kept my temper, but I daresay I managed to say
what I wanted to say—I generally do—and eventually she took the telegram
back and decided to take a cab to Charing Cross and send it from there.
“Shilling’sworth of your best stamps,” he requested; “I want them to
match my necktie.”
“Pennies or halfpennies?” I asked. You can understand I wasn’t in the
mood for nonsense just then.
“Which are most fashionable just now, miss? I don’t want to look odd or
conspicuous.”
“You’ll do that in any case. Kindly say what you want.”
“Perhaps I’ll try sixpennyworth of each,” he said.