“No credit do I ask,” replied the lively boy; “when I told you I loved sugar-plums, did I tell you I loved them, or even my sister, so well as to run in debt for them? Here’s for myself, and here’s for my sister’s share,” said he, laying down his money; “and now for the burnt almonds gratis, my good fellow.” “They are all out; I have been out of burnt almonds this great while,” said Piedro. “Then why are they in your advertisement here?” said Carlo. “I have not had time to scratch them out of the board.” “What! not when you have, by your own account, been out of them a great while? I did not know it required so much time to blot out a few words—let us try”; and as he spoke, Carlo, for that was the name of Piedro’s new customer, pulled a bit of white chalk out of his pocket, and drew a broad score across the line on the board which promised burnt almonds gratis. “You are most impatient,” said Piedro; “I shall have a fresh stock of almonds to-morrow.” “Why must the board tell a lie to-day?” “It would ruin me to alter it,” said Piedro. “A lie may ruin you, but I could scarcely think the truth could.” “You have no right to meddle with me or my board,” said Piedro, put off his guard, and out of his usual soft voice of civility, by this last observation. “My character, and that of my board, are too firmly established now for any chance customer like you to injure.” “I never dreamed of injuring you or anyone else,” said Carlo—“I wish, moreover, you may not injure yourself. Do as you please with your board, but give me my sugar-plums, for I have some right to meddle with those, having paid for them.” “Hold out your hand, then.” “No, put them in here, if you please; put my sister’s, at least, in here; she likes to have them in this box: I bought some for her in it yesterday, and she’ll think they’ll taste the better out of the same box. But how is this? your measure does not fill my box nearly; you give us very few sugar-plums for our money.” “I give you full measure, as I give to everybody.” “The measure should be an inch cube, I know,” said Carlo; “that’s what all the little merchants have agreed to, you know.” “True,” said Piedro, “so it is.” “And so it is, I must allow,” said Carlo, measuring the outside of it with the carpenter’s rule which he held in his hand. “An inch every way; and yet by my eye—and I have no bad one, being used to measuring carpenter’s work for my father—by my eye I should think this would have held more sugar-plums.” “The eye often deceives us;” said Piedro. “There’s nothing like measuring, you find.” “There’s nothing like measuring, I find, indeed,” replied Carlo, as he looked closely at the end of his rule, which, since he spoke last, he had put into the cube to take its depth in the inside. “This is not as deep by a quarter of an inch, Signor Piedro, measured within as it is measured without.”