Good-by, Mouse dear. No, don't come
back to the Cara-advanced-serai. Play around and see the
animiles. G'-by."
He watched her straight swaying figure swing across the lawn and up
the steps of the half-timbered inn. He watched her enter the door
before he hastened to the shops which clustered about the railway-
station, outside of the poetic preserves of the colony proper.
He noticed, as he went, that the men crossing the green were
mostly clad in Norfolk jackets and knickers, so he purchased the
first pair of unrespectable un-ankle-concealing trousers he had
owned since small boyhood, and a jacket of rough serge, with a
gaudy buckle on the belt. Also, he actually dared an orange tie!
He wanted something for Istra at dinner--"a s'prise," he
whispered under his breath, with fond babying. For the first
time in his life he entered a florist's shop.... Normally, you
know, the poor of the city cannot afford flowers till they are
dead, and then for but one day.... He came out with a bunch of
orchids, and remembered the days when he had envied the people
he had seen in florists' shops actually buying flowers.
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