“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 finger-nails. Isn’t it queer how it rubs you the wrong way to have a salesperson look at her finger-nails?” “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 absent-mindedly 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.