CHAPTER FIVE
There was no hard stock in Brandeis' Bazaar now. The
packing-room was always littered with straw and excelsior
dug from hogsheads and great crates. Aloysius lorded it
over a small red-headed satellite who disappeared inside
barrels and dived head first into huge boxes, coming up
again with a lamp, or a doll, or a piece of glassware, like
a magician. Fanny, perched on an overturned box, used to
watch him, fascinated, while he laboriously completed a
water set, or a tea set. A preliminary dive would bring up
the first of a half dozen related pieces, each swathed in
tissue paper. A deft twist on the part of the attendant
Aloysius would strip the paper wrappings and disclose a
ruby-tinted tumbler, perhaps. Another dive, and another,
until six gleaming glasses stood revealed, like chicks
without a hen mother. A final dip, much scratching and
burrowing, during which armfuls of hay and excelsior were
thrown out, and then the red-headed genie of the barrel
would emerge, flushed and triumphant, with the water pitcher
itself, thus completing the happy family.
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