What does she want?' 'She
would not say, sir, and she would not send in her name. She said it did
not matter.' I began to wonder what I had been doing. 'What is she
like?' I asked. He looked all round as if in search of a simile, and
then he answered: 'Well, sir, she's more like a picture than anything.'
'Show her in,' I said."
Here the story was interrupted by a shout of laughter. He laughed a
little himself.
"I should have been polite in any case," he declared, apologetically.
"The clerk ushered in a lady whose extreme embarrassment made me sorry
for her. She changed colour half-a-dozen times in as many seconds, and
then she hurled her errand at my head in these words, without any
previous preparation to break the blow: 'Mr. Lloyd, can you lend me
five shillings?' and before I had recovered she continued--'I came in
by train this morning, and I've lost my purse, and can't get back if
you won't help me--at least I think I've lost my purse. I took it out
to give sixpence to a beggar--and--and here is the sixpence!' and she
held it out to me. She had given her purse to the beggar and carried
the sixpence off in triumph.
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