"You were looking for something?" demanded this menace incarnate, in
an awful voice accompanied by a terrible gesture.
P. Sybarite brought up standing, his nose six inches from and his eyes
held in fascination to the imitation pearl scarf-pin in the beautiful
cravat affected by his interlocutor.
"Gloves--!" he gasped guiltily.
"This way, if you please."
With this, Dignity and Authority clamped an inexorable hand about his
upper arm, swung him round, and piloted him gently but ruthlessly back
the way he had come, back to the glove counter, where he was planted
directly in front of the dashing, dark saleslady with absorbing back
hair and the manner of remote hauteur.
"Miss Brady, this gentleman wants to see some gloves."
The eyes of Miss Brady flashed ominously; as plain as print, they
said: "Does, does he? Well, leave him to _me_!"
Aloud, she murmured from an incalculable distance: "Oh, ve-ry well!"
A moment later, looking over the customer's head, she added icily:
"What kind?"
The floor-walker retired, leaving P. Sybarite a free agent but none
the less haunted by a feeling that a suspicious eye was being kept on
the small of his back. He stammered something quite inarticulate.
The brune goddess shaped ironic lips:
"Chauffeurs', I presoom?"
A measure of self-possession--akin to the deadly coolness of the
cornered rat--returned to the badgered little man.
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