A kind of icy varnish of cold overlaid the gay lables of the canned goods; the remnants of red and blue tartan exposed for sale looked coarse-grained with the cold, and cold slips of ribbons clung to the glass of the cases like the tongues of children tipped to the frosted panes.

Even the super-heated stove took on a purplish tinge of chilblains, roughed by the wind.
A kind of arctic stillness pervaded the place, out of which the two men hailed each other at intervals as from immeasurable deeps of space.
"Mr.Greenslet," ventured Peter at last, "are you a rich man ?" "Not by a long sight." "Why ?" questioned Peter.
"Not built that way." The grocer lapsed back into the silence and seemed to lean against it meditatively.

The wolf wind howled about the corners and cast snow like powdered glass upon the windows contemptuously, and time went by with a large deliberate movement like a fat man turning over, before Peter hailed again.
"Did you ever want to be ?" Mr.Greenslet reached out for the damper of the stove ostensibly to shake down the ashes, but really to pull himself up out of the soundless spaces of thought.
"When I was your age, yes.

Thought I was going to be." The shaking of the damper seemed to loosen the springs of speech in him.

"I was up in the city working for Siegel Brothers; began as a bundle boy and meant to be one of the partners.