It seemed very hard that he should have the care of this willful little cousin, just when he wanted so much to be free to pursue Flyaway.

“If you won’t go back to Stewart’s, you won’t.  Will you go into this shop, then, and wait till I call for you?”

“You’ll forget to call.”

“I certainly won’t forget.”

“Well, then, I’ll go in; but I won’t promise to stay.  I want to help hunt for Fly just as much as you do.”

“Dotty Dimple, look me right in the eye.  I can’t stop to coax you.  I’m frightened to death about Fly.  Do you go into this store, and stay in it till I call for you, if it’s six hours.  If you stir, you’re lost.  Do—­you—­hear?”

“Yes, I hear.—­H’m, he thinks my ears are thick as ears o’ corn?  No holes in ’em to hear with, I s’pose!  Horace Clifford hasn’t got the say o’ me, though.  I can go all over town for all o’ him!”

“What will you have, my little lady?” said a clerk, bowing to Dotty.

“I don’t want anything, if you please, sir.  There was a boy, and he asked me to stay here while he went to find something.”

“Very well; sit as long as you please.”

“Screwed right down into the floor, this piano stool is,” thought Dotty; “makes it real hard to sit on, because you can’t whirl it.  Guess I’ll walk ’round a while.  Why, if here isn’t a window right in the floor!  Strong enough to walk on.  There’s a man going over it with big boots and a cane.  I can look right down into the cellar.  Only just I can’t see any thing, though, the glass is so thick.”

Dotty watched the clerks measuring off yards of cloth, tapping on the counter, and calling out, “Cash.”  It was rather funny, at first, to see the little boys run; but Dotty soon tired of it.

“Horace is gone a long while,” thought she, going to the door and looking out.

“He has forgotten to call, or he’s forgotten where he left me, or else he hasn’t found Fly.  Dear, dear!  I can’t wait.  I’ll just go out a few steps, and p’rhaps I’ll meet ’em.”

She walked out a little way, seeing nothing but a multitude of strange faces.

“Well, I should think this was queer!  I’ll go right back to that store, and sit down on the piano stool.  If Horace Clifford can’t be more polite!  Well, I should think!”

Dotty went back, and entered, as she supposed, the store she had left; but a great change had come over it.  It had the same counters, and stools, and goods on lines, marked “Selling off below cost;” but the men looked very different.  “I don’t see how they could change round so quick,” thought Dotty; “I haven’t been gone more’n a minute.”

“What shall I serve you to, mees,” said one of them, with a smile that was all black eyes and white teeth.  Dotty thought he looked very much like Lina Rosenbug’s brother; and his hair was so shiny and sticky, it must have been dipped in molasses.