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 made in your first try.” She looked at him earnestly now and spoke seriously, “Mr. Willing, there is something that troubled me, and I’d like to tell you about it. I’d made two or three sales all right, and then a customer, Mrs. Warner it was, perhaps you know her, came in to look at sweaters. We’re just out of the plain, one-color, conservative kind, though Miss Flynn said you had some ordered and they’d be here any day. That was the kind Mrs. Warner asked for. But she saw another one in the showcase, a bright emerald-green one with pearl-gray stripes, the conspicuous kind that young girls wear with pleated gray crepe-de-chine skirts and pearl-gray stockings and sandals, and it sort of took her eye. I knew it would look simply terrible on her--she’s between forty and fifty and quite stout--the kind who always runs her shoes over. And I persuaded her to wait till the plain ones came in. I thought she’d be better satisfied in the end and feel more like coming back to the store. But Miss Flynn thought it was very wrong in me to have let her get away without making a sale.” “Why didn’t you try to sell her both sweaters?” asked the merchant testingly. “Oh, her husband is only a clerk in Camp’s Drug Store! They haven’t much money. She’d never have felt she could afford two. If she’d taken the bright sporty one she’d have had to wear it for a year. And I know her husband and children wouldn’t have liked it.” “Oh, you know her personally?” asked Jerome. “No, not what you’d call personally--just from what I’ve seen of her here in the store. She’s quite a person to come around ‘just looking’ you know. I guess she loves to look at pretty things as much as I do. And several times when I hadn’t any customer on hand, I’ve had a little talk with her to make friends, and I showed her some of our nicest things, letting her see that I knew they were nothing she wanted to buy. I _love_ to show off some of the pretty young things to women like that, who have to work hard at home. It’s as good as going to a party for them. And it gives them the habit of coming to the store too when they _do_ want something. Then she happened to mention her name. I put it down on my list to memorize. I remember how I always used to like it when a salesgirl remembered my name.” “Well, for God’s _sake_!” ejaculated the young merchant inaudibly, moved to an almost solemn thankfulness. Aloud he said, clearing his throat and playing with a paper-cutter, “Don’t you find it hard to remember the names of the customers?”