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132 was driving her to the verge of hysterics under the loudly-expressed belief that he was "helping." Dick laughed, and knelt on one knee to tie a slant-eyed solid girl into a white silk baby bonnet.

"Now, now," he said; "when we're doing the parents yeoman service, too! This girl has never had her points properly shown up before. How much for the bonnet, Meyo? One dollar? Don't you think it? Two, Meyo, when you hev' such a very attractive piece of live goods to hang it on."

The faded, black-shawled mother and the brawny husband grinned doubtfully, and Miss Chubb snatched the bonnet away.

"You've a right to be ashamed of yourself, Corporal," she cried. "Why, I was just beginning to take an interest in that girl," complained Dick. "Sell her that blue ki- mono thing, too, and she'll get a husband to-morrow. You've spoiled a promising career, Miss Chubb. Hallo, kiddy!"

Slicker presented a two-year-old buttoned into trousers that swept the floor.

"I imagine that'll about do the trick," he said. "Keep him warm right alone till he's grown up, eh? Hallo, sonny. Don't walk all over yourself."

"Sakes," gasped Miss Chubb. "Oh, this is fierce. Slicker, it's a girl."

She collapsed weakly on a bale of quilts and laughed, mopping her eyes. "What in the nation am I to do with you two?" she said.

"Take us into partnership," suggested Dick unabashed. "We'd get through more trade in a day than you would in three weeks. Hustle around that fellow over there, Slicker. He's tried on every mortal garment that we have, and his pockets are bulging with bills yet."

Miss Chubb looked round the bale-room where the rows of shelves dripped the unfolded ends of every kind of garment. For over two hours brown fingers had pulled and brown critical eyes stared at them and brown flat noses smelt them. She was needed in the school-yard where the children were quarrelling shrilly; she was needed in the kitchen where her young helper struggled to make up a