Her horror at such an utter absence of any natural feeling for the standards of her profession was sincere and deep. She felt that the recital of the bare fact needed no embellishment to make its significance apparent to any man in retail selling.
As she expected, Mr. Willing lowered the corners of his mouth and raised his eyebrows high as he listened. He looked down at the geometrical design he was drawing on the blotting paper. He thought silently for a moment, gnawing meditatively on one corner of his lower lip. Then, “I believe I’d better have a talk with Mrs. Knapp myself,” he said weightily; “send her in at closing time, won’t you?”
Miss Flynn went off, walking softly, and well satisfied.
He had made a point of not speaking to Mrs. Knapp except for a casual salutation since he had taken her up to the Cloak-and-Suits three weeks before, and now as she came into the office he looked at her hard to see what the experience had done for her, and make out if he could gather from her aspect, attitude, voice and intonation anything like the rich illustrative commentary which Miss Flynn had involuntarily given him.
“How do you like the work, Mrs. Knapp,” he asked her, in a dry, businesslike way, “now that you have had a little experience of it?”
He was touched, he was actually moved by the flush of feeling which came into her dark, ardent face as she answered, “Oh, Mr. Willing, I love it! I do hope I’ll give satisfaction, for I love every bit of it.”
Jerome Willing loved it so himself that he felt warm towards the kindred spirit. “I’m glad of that,” he said heartily, swept away for an instant from his usual prudent reserve, “and I think there’s no doubt whatever that you’ll give satisfaction.”
He added with an instant return to his dry manner, “I mean, of course, when you’ve learned the work. There is a great deal to learn.”
“Yes, I know,” she said humbly. “I feel how ignorant I am. But I try to pick up whatever I can. I’ve been watching with all my might how the salespeople work. The job of stock-girl gives you such a splendid chance to watch customers and salespeople. And yesterday Miss Flynn gave me a salesbook and let me come out on the floor at noon. It is very exciting to me,” she said, smiling a little, deprecating her inexperience and ignorance.
“How did you get along?” asked Jerome, with an increase of the nonchalant in his tone.
“I was so interested I could hardly breathe,” she told him. “You’re so used to it all, Mr. Willing, you can’t think how fascinating it is to me. I’ve always loved shopping, anyhow, though I’ve had very little chance to do much. And I’ve thought about it a great deal, of course, from the customer’s point of view. Now to be on the other side and to be able to try to do what I’ve always thought salespeople ought to do … it’s wonderful! Of course, nothing very extraordinary. Just what any experienced salesperson knows, without thinking about it, I suppose.”
“Yes, I dare say. What kind of thing?” asked the proprietor of the store, finding it hard to keep up his decent appearance of indifference when he really felt like a hound who, after weary beating about the bush, strikes a trail as fresh as paint and longs to give tongue to his joy in a full-throated bay.
“Oh, all kinds of things, too little to mention. Just what I’ve noticed in all the years I’ve shopped … why, here’s one. The way a salesperson gets up and comes toward you when you come in. I’ve always loved to have a girl get up quickly, as if she were glad to see me, and come towards me, looking right at me with a pleasant welcoming look. It’s always made me feel cross when they drag themselves up and come sagging over to me, looking down at their blouse-fronts or over my head … or especially at their fingernails. Isn’t it queer how it rubs you the wrong way to have a salesperson look at her fingernails?”
“Yes, that’s a good point,” said Mr. Willing guardedly, baying inwardly for joy.
“And then another thing I just love to be able to do is to know just where to lay my hand on anything. I’m afraid I’m very quick-tempered and irritable by nature, and I know I’ve started up and gone right out of a store, many’s the time, because the girl who was waiting on me would look and look for something I wanted, fumbling around absentmindedly as if she weren’t really thinking about it, and then call across to another girl, ‘Say, Jen, where’d you put that inch-and-a-half binding?’ ”
The proprietor of the store repressed with difficulty a whoop of delight over the exactitude of this snapshot. He looked down neutrally at his desk.
The new saleswoman went on, “I’d always supposed that it must be ever so hard to know where things are back of a counter from the way the girls often act about it. But it’s not! Not for me anyhow! No harder than knowing where your baking-powder and salt stand on the kitchen shelf!”
“Oh, no, it’s not hard at all for any salesperson who puts her mind on it.” Mr. Willing tossed this off airily and negligently. So successful was his manner that his employee thought she was being indiscreet and had forgotten to keep her place. “I’m taking too much of your time,” she said apologetically, turning to go.
He kept her with an indulgent gesture, “Oh, no, you’ll find I’m always interested in anything that concerns the Store,” he said grandly. “And you haven’t told me yet about the sales you
