Vaguely in his mind was the thought that he might buy the place and thereafter keep store.

His cheeks distended by the chocolate mouse and the last of the cocoanut creams, he now bartered for a candy cigar.

It was of brown material, at the blunt end a circle of white for the ash and at its centre a brilliant square of scarlet paper for the glow, altogether a charming feat of simulation, perhaps the most delightful humoresque in all confectionery.

It was priced at two cents, but what was money now?
Then, his eye roving to the loftier shelves, he spied remotely above him a stuffed blue jay mounted on a varnished branch of oak.

This was not properly a part of the Gumble stock; it was a fixture, technically, giving an air to the place from its niche between two mounting rows of laden shelves.
"How much for that beautiful bird for my father ?" demanded the nouveau riche.
His words were blurred by the still-resistant chocolate mouse, and he was compelled to point before Solly Gumble divined his wish.