“You don’t want much!” laughed Bert.

“Well, let’s go in!” suggested Billy.

So, with the two boys in the lead, followed by Nell and Nan and Flossie and Freddie, the children entered the second-hand and souvenir store.

A bell on the door rang with a loud clang as Billy opened it, and when the children stepped inside the shop an old man with a black, curly beard and long black hair that seemed as if it had never been combed, came out from a back room.

“What you want to buy, little childrens?” he asked.  “I got a lot of nice things, cheap!  Very cheap!”

“Well, if you’ve got something very cheap we might buy it,” answered Billy, with as nearly a grown-up manner as he could assume.  “But we haven’t much money.”

“Ha!  Ha!  That’s what they all say!” exclaimed the old man.  “But everybody has more money that what I has.  I’m very poor.  I don’t hardly make a living I sell things so cheap.  What you want to buy, little childrens?”

“Have you got any whistles or fire engines?” burst out Freddie, unable to wait any longer.

“Whistles?  Lots of ’em!” exclaimed the man.  “Here is a finest whistle what ever was.  Listen to it!”

He took one from the show case and blew into it.  Not a sound came out.

“Ach!  I guess that one is damaged,” he said.  “But I got other ones.  Here!  Listen to this!”

The next one blew loud and shrill.

“I want that!” cried Freddie.

“Ten cents!” said the man, holding it out to the little boy.

“What?” cried Billy.  “Why, I can buy those whistles for five cents anywhere in Washington!  Ten cents?  I guess not!”

“Oh, well, take it for seven cents then,” said the man.  “What I care if I die poor.  Take it for seven cents!”

“No, sir!” exclaimed Billy firmly.  “Five cents is all they cost, and this is an old one.”

“Oh, well.  Take it for five then.  What I care if you cheats a poor old man?  Such a boy as you are!  Take it for five cents!” and he handed the whistle to Freddie.  But before he could take it Nan said, gently: 

“I think it would be better for him to have a fresh one from the box.  That is all dusty.”

The truth was she did not want Freddie to take a whistle the old man had blown into.

“Oh, well, I gives you a fresh one,” he said, and he took a new and shining one from the box.  Freddie blew it, making a shrill sound.

“What else you want to buy, little childrens?” asked the old man.  “I sell everythings cheap—­everythings!”

“Ask how much the dishes are,” whispered Nan to Billy.  But he shook his head, and looked around the shop.  He looked everywhere but at the window where the dishes were.

“Any sailboats?” asked Billy, as if that was all he had come in to inquire about.

“Sailboats?” cried the man.  “Sailboats?”

“Yes, toy sailboats.”