grave, “I don’t say that it does not happen even now, sometimes. For you know love is not a very reasonable thing, and perversity and self-will are commoner than some of our moralist’s think.” He added, in a still more sombre tone: “Yes, only a month ago there was a mishap down by us, that in the end cost the lives of two men and a woman, and, as it were, put out the sunlight for us for a while. Don’t ask me about it just now; I may tell you about it later on.”
By this time we were within the shop or booth, which had a counter, and shelves on the walls, all very neat, though without any pretence of showiness, but otherwise not very different to what I had been used to. Within were a couple of children—a brown-skinned boy of about twelve, who sat reading a book, and a pretty little girl of about a year older, who was sitting also reading behind the counter; they were obviously brother and sister.
“Good morning, little neighbours,” said Dick. “My friend here wants tobacco and a pipe; can you help him?”
“O yes, certainly,” said the girl with a sort of demure alertness which was somewhat amusing. The boy looked up, and fell to staring at my outlandish attire, but presently reddened and turned his head, as if he knew that he was not behaving prettily.
“Dear neighbour,” said the girl, with the most solemn countenance of a child playing at keeping shop, “what tobacco is it you would like?”
“Latakia,” quoth I, feeling as if I were assisting at a child’s game, and wondering whether I should get anything but make-believe.
But the girl took a dainty little basket from a shelf beside her, went to a jar, and took out a lot of tobacco and put the filled basket down on the counter before me, where I could both smell and see that it was excellent Latakia.
“But you haven’t weighed it,” said I, “and—and how much am I to take?”
“Why,” she said, “I advise you to cram your bag, because you may be going where you can’t get Latakia. Where is your bag?”
I fumbled about, and at last pulled out my piece of cotton print which does duty with me for a tobacco pouch. But the girl looked at it with some disdain, and said—
“Dear neighbour, I can give you something much better than that cotton rag.” And she tripped up the shop and came back presently, and as she passed the boy whispered something in his ear, and he nodded and got up and went out. The girl held up in her finger and thumb a red morocco bag, gaily embroidered, and said, “There, I have chosen one for you, and you are to have it: it is pretty, and will hold a lot.”
Therewith she fell to cramming it with the tobacco, and laid it down by me and said, “Now for the pipe: that also you must let me choose for you; there are three pretty ones just come in.”
She disappeared again, and came back with a big-bowled pipe in her hand, carved out of some hard wood very elaborately, and mounted in gold sprinkled with little gems. It was, in short, as pretty and gay a toy as I had ever seen; something like the best kind of Japanese work, but better.
“Dear me!” said I, when I set eyes on it, “this is altogether too grand for me, or for anybody but the Emperor of the World. Besides, I shall lose it: I always lose my pipes.”
The child seemed rather dashed, and said, “Don’t you like it, neighbour?”
“O yes,” I said, “of course I like it.”
“Well, then, take it,” said she, “and don’t trouble about losing it. What will it matter if you do? Somebody is sure to find it, and he will use it, and you can get another.”
I took it out of her hand to look at it, and while I did so, forgot my caution, and said, “But however am I to pay for such a thing as this?”
Dick laid his hand on my shoulder as I spoke, and turning I met his eyes with a comical expression in them, which warned me against another exhibition of extinct commercial morality; so I reddened and held my tongue, while the girl simply looked at me with the deepest gravity, as if I were a foreigner blundering in my speech, for she clearly didn’t understand me a bit.
“Thank you so very much,” I said at last, effusively, as I put the pipe in my pocket, not without a qualm of doubt as to whether I shouldn’t find myself before a magistrate presently.
“O, you are so very welcome,” said the little lass, with an affectation of grown-up manners at their best which was very quaint. “It is such a pleasure to serve dear old gentlemen
