Customers pressed round her on all sides as she put down the note and
peered through the wire network into the interior of the desk.
'Next, please,' said the cashier sharply, after a moment.
'My change,' demanded Lily.
'You have had it, madam.'
'Oh,' said Lily, 'I have had it, have I? Now, none of your nonsense,
young man! Do you know who I am? I'm Mrs. Albert Shawn.'
'Mr. Randall,' the cashier called out coldly, and a grave and gigantic
shopwalker appeared who knew not the name of Albert Shawn, and who
firmly told Mrs. Shawn that if she wished to make a complaint she must
make it at the Central Inquiry Office, ground-floor, Department 1A.
Lily had been brazenly robbed at Hugo's by an employe of Hugo! She was
elbowed away by other women apparently anxious to be robbed. She wanted
to cry, but suddenly remembering her identity, and her pass to the
presence of Hugo, she threw up her head and marched off through the
crowds.
She had not proceeded twenty yards before she was stopped by a group of
persons round a policeman--a policeman obviously called in from Sloane
Street. A stout woman of lady-like appearance had been arrested on a
charge of attempted pocket-picking. An accusatory shopwalker charged
her, and she replied warmly that she was Lady Brice (_nee_
Kentucky-Webster), the American wife of the well-known philanthropist,
and that her carriage was waiting outside.
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