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“Old stingy Crocker!” muttered Grover.”Humph! He wouldn’t give you anything!”

And yet—he did not go away. He hung there curiously, peering through the window, with his dark and gentle face now focused and intent, alert and curious, flattening his nose against the glass. Unconsciously he scratched the thick-ribbed fabric of one stockinged leg with the scuffed and worn toe of his old shoe. The fresh, warm odor of the new-made fudge was delicious. It was a little maddening. Half consciously he began to fumble in one trouser pocket, and pulled out his purse, a shabby worn old black one with a twisted clasp. He opened it and prowled about inside.

What he found was not inspiring—a nickel and two pennies and—he had forgotten them—the stamps. He took the stamps out and unfolded them. There were five twos, eight ones, all that remained of the dollar-sixty-cents’ worth which Reed, the pharmacist, had given him for running errands a week or two before.

“Old Crocker,” Grover thought, and looked somberly at the grotesque little form as it rocked back into the shop again, around the counter, and up the other side.”Well—” again he looked indefinitely at the stamps in his hand—”he’s had all the rest of them. He might as well take these.”

So, soothing conscience with this sop of scorn, he went into the shop and stood looking at the trays in the glass case and finally decided. Pointing with a slightly grimy finger at the fresh-made tray of chocolate fudge, he said, “I’ll take fifteen cents’ worth of this, Mr. Crocker.” He paused a moment, fighting with embarrassment, then he lifted his dark face and said quietly, “And please, I’ll have to give you stamps again.”

Mr. Crocker made no answer. He did not look at Grover. He pressed his lips together primly. He went rocking away and got the candy scoop, came back, slid open the door of the glass case, put fudge into the scoop, and, rocking to the scales, began to weigh the candy out. Grover watched him as he peered and squinted, he watched him purse and press his lips together, he saw him take a piece of fudge and break it in two parts. And then old Crocker broke two parts in two again. He weighed, he squinted, and he hovered, until it seemed to Grover that by calling Mrs. Crocker stingy he had been guilty of a rank injustice. But finally, to his vast relief, the job was over, the scales hung there, quivering apprehensively, upon the very hair-line of nervous balance, as if even the scales were afraid that one more move from Old Man Crocker and they would be undone.

Mr. Crocker took the candy then and dumped it in a paper bag and, rocking back along the counter toward the boy, he dryly said: “Where are the stamps?” Grover gave them to him. Mr. Crocker relinquished his clawlike hold upon the bag and set it down upon the counter. Grover took the bag and dropped it in his canvas sack, and then remembered.”Mr. Crocker—” again he felt the old embarrassment that was almost like strong pain—”I gave you too much,” Grover said.”There were eighteen cents in stamps. You—you can just give me three ones back.”

Mr. Crocker did not answer. He was busy with his bony little hands, unfolding the stamps and flattening them out on top of the glass counter. When he had done so, he peered at them sharply for a moment, thrusting his scrawny neck forward and running his eye up and down, like a bookkeeper who totes up rows of figures.

When he had finished, he said tartly: “I don’t like this kind of business. If you want candy, you should have the money for it. I’m not a post office. The next time you come in here and want anything, you’ll have to pay me money for it.”

Hot anger rose in Grover’s throat. His olive face suffused with angry color. His tarry eyes got black and bright. He was on the verge of saying: “Then why did you take my other stamps? Why do you tell me now, when you have taken all the stamps I had, that you don’t want them?”