The grocer's young man stopped and pushed back his cap until it hung on
his collar button behind.
"That's out o' sight, Kid," said he.
"My name is Celia, if you please," said the whistler, dazzling him with
a three-inch smile.
That's all right. I'm Thomas McLeod. What part of the house do you work
in?"
"I'm the--the second parlor maid."
"Do you know the 'Falling Waters'?"
"No," said Celia, "we don't know anybody. We got rich too quick--that
is, Mr. Spraggins did."
"I'll make you acquainted," said Thomas McLeod. "It's a strathspey--the
first cousin to a hornpipe."
If Celia's whistling put the piccolos out of commission, Thomas McLeod's
surely made the biggest flutes hunt their holes. He could actually
whistle _bass_.
When he stopped Celia was ready to jump into his delivery wagon and ride
with him clear to the end of the pier and on to the ferry-boat of the
Charon line.
"I'll be around to-morrow at 10:15," said Thomas, "with some spinach and
a case of carbonic."
"I'll practice that what-you-may-call-it," said Celia. "I can whistle a
fine second."
The processes of courtship are personal, and do not belong to general
literature. They should be chronicled in detail only in advertisements
of iron tonics and in the secret by-laws of the Woman's Auxiliary of
the Ancient Order of the Rat Trap.
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