Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the bargain
counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies' waiting-rooms.
Deemer and two grown daughters occupied the upper rooms of the building, but Silas had never been known to sleep elsewhere than on a cot behind the
counter of the store.
With slowly dawning remembrance, Mr Venus rises, and holds his candle over the little
counter, and holds it down towards the legs, natural and artificial, of Mr Wegg.
Steady-eyed like her husband, she preserved an air of unfathomable indifference behind the rampart of the
counter. Then the customer of comparatively tender years would get suddenly disconcerted at having to deal with a woman, and with rage in his heart would proffer a request for a bottle of marking ink, retail value sixpence (price in Verloc's shop one-and-sixpence), which, once outside, he would drop stealthily into the gutter.
Luckily for the views of Bobbinet & Co., we were all still lying on the
counter. This is deemed a fortunate circumstance in the contingencies of this species of trade, since it enables the dealer to offer his uncalled-for wares in the least suspicious and most natural manner.
Fynes," he said, lifting the flap of the
counter and coming out.
There was an envelope lying on the
counter, and a policeman writing in a note-book!
The
counter, shelves, and floor had all been scoured, and the latter was overstrewn with fresh blue sand.
At the first knock, a sound, as of persons fencing with fire- irons, which had until now been very audible, suddenly ceased; at the second, a studious-looking young gentleman in green spectacles, with a very large book in his hand, glided quietly into the shop, and stepping behind the
counter, requested to know the visitor's pleasure.
He brought it and laid it on the
counter; meanwhile, the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing: "I haven't got any silver; you can keep this." And he threw down half a sovereign, and caught up his coat.
A morose, shabby old man dozed behind the
counter. A thin woman in black, with a sickly face, produced the envelope he had asked for without even looking at him.
And was that really--was it really a SHEEP that was sitting on the other side of the
counter? Rub as she could, she could make nothing more of it: she was in a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the
counter, and opposite to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles.