LITMIR.BIZ

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child of his only brother, John Gilfooly. The oldest child of John Gilfooly was Tessie Gilfooly. A queen! With a throne and a crown and everything! Tessie's brain reeled. She felt faint.

      "You come over to the office—Marvin, Phelps and Stokes," suggested Bert, who had come from the office of Marvin, Phelps and Stokes to carry the good news to Tessie and who had never had an errand he liked any better. "Mr. Marvin will tell you all about it."

      "Oh, I couldn't come now," faltered Tessie, pinching herself to make sure that she was in the hardware department of the Evergreen and not dreaming in her bed. "I don't get away until half-past five."

      "I guess you could get away all right," laughed Bert. But when Tessie shook her yellow head and solemnly assured him that Mr. Walker was awfully strict and never let the girls go a minute before half-past five he laughed again and said all right. He would tell Mr. Marvin that she would be over at half-past five. "Queen Teresa," he said in a voice quite full of admiration and approval, as he went away.

      For some time Tessie had been conscious that Mr. Walker had been casting disapproving glances in her direction. Tessie knew—all the girls in the Evergreen had been told—that they were not to talk to their gentlemen friends during working hours. Before nine and after half-past five they could do as they pleased, but from nine until half-past five they could only talk to customers. And this man with Tessie Gilfooly had not bought so much as a dish mop. He had not even asked to see any aluminum. Mr. Walker knew. It was outrageous!

      But before he could swoop down on Tessie and tell her just how outrageous it was another man approached the table on which aluminum saucepans were so attractively arranged and behind which Tessie was standing with a white face and big, unbelieving eyes. If she let go of the table Tessie knew she would fall right to the floor.

      This newcomer was as strange a figure as Mr. Walker had ever seen in the basement of the Evergreen. He was short and fat and with a skin that was not brown nor yellow nor red, but an odd blending of the three colors. He wore a loose blue denim blouse and trousers which flapped about his bare feet. But it was his head which made Mr. Walker's eyes bulge, for only in the pages of the National Geographic Magazine, which he looked at every month in the employees' rest-room, had Mr. Walker ever seen such a head. The coarse black hair was frizzed and stiffened until it stuck straight out from the scalp and was adorned with shells. The man's nose was tattooed in red and blue and a string of shells hung around his neck. Altogether he was the strangest figure Mr. Walker had ever seen in the department, and he wondered what on earth he would buy. He looked like a foreigner of some sort. Mr. Walker was taking a course in business psychology in the Evergreen night school, and he saw the advantage of the study now as he quickly labeled the stranger a native of some foreign country.

      The native walked up to Tessie and raised his hand authoritatively. "Miss Teresa Gilfooly?" he said in a lisping voice and with a strange intonation which made Tessie step back and stare at him.

      She nodded. She simply could not speak.

      "Queen Teresa!" murmured the native rapturously. He fell on his knees before Tessie and pressed the hem of her short skirt to his forehead. "Queen Teresa!" he boomed, and his head touched the floor beside Tessie's shabby little pumps.

      If Tessie was startled you can imagine Mr. Walker's surprise. He started forward with righteous indignation. He would not have such goings-on in his department. Not for a minute! But he had to stop and adjust a matter with a customer, and when at last he reached Tessie the native was humbly backing away from her into the elevator, and Tessie was staring after him with a strange look on her face.

      "Come, come, Miss Gilfooly!" snapped Mr. Walker. "I can't have this! You can't have your gentlemen friends down here! I can't have men falling on their knees before the clerks in my department!"

      "What's up, Walker?"

      And there stood the hero of Tessie's dreams, young Mr. Bill, the only son of old Mr. William Kingley, the owner of the Evergreen. Mr. Bill was learning the business from the ground up and so was in the basement as a floorwalker. Tessie had never seen a man like Mr. Bill, not even on the moving-picture screen. She lived in the hope that some day he would speak to her, would stop and ask, perhaps, how sales were; but never once had Mr. Bill so much as said good morning or good evening to her. He had never seemed to see her. And now he was looking—actually looking—at her! and asking Mr. Walker what was up. It was plain to everyone in the basement that something was up.

      Mr. Bill looked inquiringly from Mr. Walker to Tessie. Mr. Walker's face was all frowning disapproval, while Tessie's face was all flushed with unbelieving wonder. Of the two, Tessie's face was by far the more attractive. Mr. Bill looked at it again.

      "Miss Gilfooly, Mr. Bill," began Mr. Walker, sure of his ground, "was breaking the rules. One of her gentlemen friends was on his knees to her not five minutes ago in this very department, beside the aluminum there!" And he pointed out the exact spot to Mr. Bill.

      "He said I was a queen," faltered Tessie, eager to explain why the store rule had been shattered. She could not believe the amazing statement and so she did not speak firmly, as a queen should speak. She dared to raise her eyes to the godlike Mr. Bill—at least to Tessie Mr. Bill was godlike.

      "And he was right!" declared Mr. Bill impulsively. Gee! what big blue eyes the girl had! He had never seen such eyes in the face of any girl, and he had seen many, many girls. He had never really looked at Tessie until now. She had been only one of the hundreds of black-gowned figures which filed into the Evergreen every morning, and filed out of the Evergreen every night. But now that his attention was focused on Tessie, he had to see how big and blue her eyes were, how fine her white skin was, how yellow her hair, and how slim and well poised her little body! Really, her gentleman friend was right, he thought. She was a queen. He grinned, although such a shattering of a cherished and important rule should have been met with a black frown.

      "Mr. Bill!" Mr. Walker was shocked. That was no way to reprove a law-breaking employee.

      "I don't mean that kind of a queen," murmured Tessie, tremulously conscious to her very toes at having Mr. Bill agree that she was a queen. "But a real queen—of the Sunshine Islands, you know! In the Pacific Ocean," she added hurriedly, for Mr. Bill had looked at Mr. Walker with a significance and a regret which were as plain as print. And she hurriedly told them of Uncle Pete who, unknown to his family, had reigned over the Sunshine Islands for almost twenty years.

      "Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Mr. Bill. There was astonishment, amazement in his voice which made all the customers and all the salesgirls who heard it turn in his direction, and feel sorry for little Tessie Gilfooly. It sounded as if Mr. Bill just would not believe the yellow-haired salesgirl could have committed the awful deed which had been discovered.

      "Upon my word!" stuttered Mr. Walker more elegantly. He did not know how to treat this situation. There was not a word in all the Evergreen rules on how to reprimand an employee if she neglected her work when she was told that she was a queen. Mr. Walker tugged at his mustache and stared stupidly at the culprit.

      "Well, I'll be darned!" cried Mr. Bill again, and he too, stared at blushing Queen Teresa.

      Tessie nodded. "That's the way I felt," she confessed, and again two big tears gathered in her eyes. Tessie, like long, thin Mr. Walker, felt quite unequal to the situation.

      It was Mr. Bill who took command and showed that he was a true son of the Evergreen chief. "Come," he said quickly. "We must go and tell father. Can you believe it? Imagine finding a queen down here in the basement of the Evergreen! Come along!" And he took Tessie's hand and led her to the elevator.

      Tessie almost swooned. But faint and excited as she was she clung to Mr. Bill's strong right hand.

      "Oh, the poor girl!" murmured the customers, who watched them. "I suppose she has been impudent or stealing or something. What will they do to her? Did you say these stewpans were fifty-nine cents?"

II

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