With her chin lifting suddenly in a burst of softly uproarious delight, the Youngish Girl turned her head half-way around and raised her narrow, black-gloved hands to push a tortoise-shell pin into place.

“Why, it’s perfectly simple,” she explained.  “It’s just three puffs, and two curls, and then a twist.”

“And then a twist?” quizzed the Traveling Salesman earnestly, jotting down the memorandum very carefully on the shiny black surface of his sample-case.  “Oh, I hope I ain’t been too familiar,” he added, with sudden contriteness.  “Maybe I ought to have introduced myself first.  My name’s Clifford.  I’m a drummer for Sayles & Sayles.  Maine and the Maritime Provinces—­that’s my route.  Boston’s the home office.  Ever been in Halifax?” he quizzed a trifle proudly.  “Do an awful big business in Halifax!  Happen to know the Emporium store?  The London, Liverpool, and Halifax Emporium?”

The Youngish Girl bit her lip for a second before she answered.  Then, very quietly, “Y-e-s,” she said, “I know the Emporium—­slightly.  That is—­I—­own the block that the Emporium is in.”

“Gee!” said the Traveling Salesman.  “Oh, gee!  Now I know I talk too much!”

In nervously apologetic acquiescence the Young Electrician reached up a lean, clever, mechanical hand and smouched one more streak of black across his forehead in a desperate effort to reduce his tousled yellow hair to the particular smoothness that befitted the presence of a lady who owned a business block in any city whatsoever.

“My father owned a store in Malden, once,” he stammered, just a trifle wistfully, “but it burnt down, and there wasn’t any insurance.  We always were a powerfully unlucky family.  Nothing much ever came our way!”

Even as he spoke, a toddling youngster from an overcrowded seat at the front end of the car came adventuring along the aisle after the swaying, clutching manner of tired, fretty children on trains.  Hesitating a moment, she stared up utterly unsmilingly into the Salesman’s beaming face, ignored the Youngish Girl’s inviting hand, and with a sudden little chuckling sigh of contentment, climbed up clumsily into the empty place beside the Young Electrician, rummaged bustlingly around with its hands and feet for an instant, in a petulant effort to make a comfortable nest for itself, and then snuggled down at last, lolling half-way across the Young Electrician’s perfectly strange knees, and drowsed off to sleep with all the delicious, friendly, unconcerned sang-froid of a tired puppy.  Almost unconsciously the Young Electrician reached out and unfastened the choky collar of the heavy, sweltering little overcoat; yet not a glance from his face had either lured or caressed the strange child for a single second.  Just for a moment, then, his smiling eyes reassured the jaded, jabbering French-Canadian mother, who turned round with craning neck from the front of the car.

“She’s all right here.  Let her alone!” he signaled gesticulatingly from child to mother.