In your neighborhood and can't seem to see you - polite
as three-dollar clerks in government offices.
By and by one of these rises painfully, and
"stretches" - stretches
fists and body heavenward till she raises her heels from
the floor, at the same time refreshing herself with a yawn
of such comprehensiveness that the bulk of her face disappears
behind her upper lip and one is able to see how she is
constructed inside - then she slowly closes her cavern,
brings down her fists and her heels, comes languidly forward,
contemplates you contemptuously, draws you a glass of hot water
and sets it down where you can get it by reaching for it. You
take it and say:
"How much?" - and she returns you, with elaborate indifference,
a beggar's answer:
"NACH BELIEBE" (what you please.)
This thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common
beggar's shibboleth to put you on your liberality when you
were expecting a simple straightforward commercial transaction,
adds a little to your prospering sense of irritation.
You ignore her reply, and ask again:
"How much?"
- and she calmly, indifferently, repeats:
"NACH BELIEBE."
You are getting angry, but you are trying not to show it;
you resolve to keep on asking your question till she changes
her answer, or at least her annoyingly indifferent manner.
Therefore, if your case be like mine, you two fools
stand there, and without perceptible emotion of any kind,
or any emphasis on any syllable, you look blandly into each
other's eyes, and hold the following idiotic conversation:
