The Youths Companion | Page 6

were among them."
"Well, I'll wait and see yours," answered unsuspicious Anna. "If I like
it, I'll get one too. Now mind you show it to me first when you've
finished it."
As soon as school was dismissed, Silvia hurried through Atwood to the
store of Mr. Morris.
The clerk who came bowing to her was a young man for whom she had
a special dislike,--"a conceited idiot," she called him to her companions,
"with an offensive familiarity of manner." In reality, Tom Jordan was a
well-meaning young man, though rather silly, but his vanity and
conceit happened to jar upon the same marked characteristics in Miss
Silvia.

"What shall I show you this evening, Miss Silvia?" rubbing his hands
and smiling blandly.
"Are none of the other clerks disengaged?" she asked, loftily.
The young man's smile faded away. "I'm afraid, Miss Morden, they're
all busy. Can I show you anything?"
"Have you any cuspadores among your new pottery?"
"What did you say?" asked Tom.
"I said cuspadores. I presume you know what they are."
Now Jordan didn't know any better than she what cuspadores are. But
he, too, had a reputation to support for knowing everything in his line
of business. He was not going to peril it at a counter full of gaping
customers by acknowledging his ignorance.
He would question her a little, to find out what it was.
He put his finger to his forehead, and shut his eyes, as if trying to
remember where the cuspadores were placed.
"What style do you wish? The fact is, there are so many different
shapes in vogue now."
"Oh, the most antique, of course. I doat on those queer antique things."
His head in a whirl, Tom rushed into the back room, leaving Silvia
conversing with some acquaintances who had come in. From the back
room he ran into an office where the book-keeper, who was lately from
Philadelphia, was absorbed over a column of figures.
"Ralston, what under the sun is a cuspadore?" he cried.
"It's a spittoon,--a spit-box,--you ninny! If you interrupt me again, I'll
shy mine at your head!"

"Whew!" whistled Tom. "Who'd have thought that 'toploftical' young
miss, with her airs and graces, used tobacco? I s'pose she rubs, or
maybe she smokes. One never knows, Ralston, what girls are up to."
"But I know what I'll be up to if you don't clear out!" cried the angry
book-keeper.
Tom rummaged the warehouse, and found a common earthenware
spittoon, which he dragged out in triumph.
"I wonder if she thinks she can buy spittoons by a new-fangled name,"
he muttered, "and nobody know what she wants 'em for? I'll let her
know she can't put her finger in my eye. That's why she wanted another
clerk."
With a flourish and a smirk, Tom deposited the spittoon on the counter
under Silvia's astonished eyes.
"Here's a cuspadore, Miss Morden; not the very finest article, but it
serves every purpose. Cleans easy, too, and that's the great thing, after
all. Shall I send you a pair?"
Utterly astonished and struck dumb, Silvia stood gazing at the hideous
thing.
"And look here, Miss Morden," dropping his voice to a confidential
whisper, "we've got the finest lot of tobacco and the best snuff you ever
used. Oh, I know,--I'll not mention it. Young ladies, of course, have
their little secrets,--I understand that, and I'll be upon honor, 'pon my
word I will."
"You insulting creature!" Silvia gasped.
Her look and tone caused Tom to back, and bump his head so violently
against a shelf that, for a minute, he was blind. When he recovered his
sight, Silvia had left the store, and the people at the counter were
gazing with wide-open eyes on the scene.

"What did you say to Miss Morden, that she flew off in such a rage?"
asked a tall, gaunt, spectacled old maid,--Miss James,--who was the
terror of the town for her ill-natured gossip and interfering ways.
"Upon my word, ma'am, I said nothing insulting," replied the angered
clerk. "Miss Silvia asked for a spittoon, and I showed her one. Of
course people do not want spittoons unless they use tobacco, do they? I
am sure I meant no harm. I only wanted to accommodate a customer."
"Of course, of course," said his grim listener. "Judge Morden and her
ma don't dream of their daughter's goings-on, I'm sure of that. I'm a
friend, and they'll know it before I'm an hour older."
She stalked out of the store, and down to Judge Morden's house.
Without ringing, she marched into the sitting-room, where Mrs.
Morden was at work.
"Clara Morden," she said, in her sharpest tones, for she was an old
acquaintance of the lady, "how have you brought up your daughter, that
she's disgracing you?"
"Disgracing! Are