A groan of dismay went up from the whole circle, and some who had pressed forward for a sight of the slippers, shrank back again.
"Did I hea' just now," asked the shoeman, with a soft insinuation in his voice, and in the glance he suddenly turned upon Clementina, "a party addressed as Boss?" Clementina flushed, but she did not cower; the chef walked away with a laugh, and the shoeman pursued him with his voice.
"Not that I am goin' to folla the wicked example of a man who tries to make spot of young ladies; but if the young lady addressed as Boss"--"Miss Claxon," said the clerk with ingratiating reverence.
"Miss Claxon--I Stan' corrected," pursued the shoeman. "If Miss Claxon will do me the fava just to try on this slippa, I sh'd be able to tell at the next place I stopped just how it looked on a lady's foot. I see you a'n't any of you disposed to buy 'em this aftanoon, 'and I a'n't complainin'; you done pootty well by me, already, and I don't want to uhge you; but I do want to carry away the picture, in my mind's eye--what you may call a mental photograph--of this slipper on the kind of a foot it was made fob, so't I can praise it truthfully to my next customer.