"But in my opinion she's too dark for such somber dresses.
I've told her so a score of times." Then as he watched the woman before him rolling up the goods he proceeded to ask with fussy importunity what she thought the express charges were likely to be, for he wanted to pay the whole bill and be done with it.
She was caught--caught fairly this time, though I doubt if she ever knew it.
"We don't often send up the river," said she.

"But I should say that for a package of this size and weight the charges would be about forty cents.
But that you can leave her to pay.

She will be quite willing to do so, I am sure." "Of course, of course--I didn't think of that.

She'll pay for it, of course she'll pay for it." And he continued to fuss and chat, with that curious mixture of native shrewdness and senile interest in little things which he thought most likely to impress the woman attending him, and trap her into giving him the complete address.
But she was too wary, or too much preoccupied with her own affairs, to let the cat any farther out of the bag, and he had to be content with her promise, that the package should be given to the expressman as early as possible the next morning.
The feebleness he showed while leaving the shop was in marked contrast, however, to the vigor with which he took down the telephone-receiver in the booth of the neighboring drug-store.

But she was not there to see; nor anyone else who had the least interest in his movements.