You take from her a smile and a
Canadian dime, and you go your way uncomplaining. You count the cheery
word or two that she tosses you as misers count their treasures; and
you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brass-bound
inaccessibility multiplies her charms--anyhow, she is a shirt-waisted
angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready,
alert--Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your
circulating medium after your sirloin medium.
The young men who broke bread at Hinkle's never settled with the cashier
without an exchange of badinage and open compliment. Many of them went
to greater lengths and dropped promissory hints of theatre tickets
and chocolates. The older men spoke plainly of orange blossoms,
generally withering the tentative petals by after-allusions to Harlem
flats. One broker, who had been squeezed by copper proposed to Miss
Merriam more regularly than he ate.
During a brisk luncheon hour Miss Merriam's conversation, while she took
money for checks, would run something like this:
"Good morning, Mr. Haskins--sir?--it's natural, thank you--don't be
quite so fresh . . . Hello, Johnny--ten, fifteen, twenty--chase along
now or they'll take the letters off your cap .
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