No! Halicarnassus is absurd and mulish in many things, but he
knows I will not be hampered with him when I am shopping, and
he obeys the smallest hint, and stops outside.

To be sure he puts my temper on the rack by standing with his
hands in his pockets, or by looking meek, or likely as not
peering into the shop-door after me with great staring eyes
and parted lips; and this is the most provoking of all. If
there is anything vulgar, slipshod, and shiftless, it is a
man lounging about with his hands in his pockets. If you have
paws, stow them away; but if you are endowed with hands, learn
to carry them properly, or else cut them off. Nor can I abide
a man's looking as if he were under control. I wish him to BE
submissive, but I don't wish him to LOOK so. He shall do just
as he is bidden, but he shall carry himself like the man and
monarch he was made to be. Let him stay where he is put, yet
not as if he were put there, but as if he had taken his
position deliberately. But, of all things, to have a man act
as if he were a clod just emerged for the first time from his
own barnyard! Upon this occasion, however, I was too much
absorbed in my errand to note anybody's demeanor, and I
threaded straightway the crowd of customers, went up to the
counter, and inquired in a clear voice,--

"Have you lace nightcaps?"

The clerk looked at me with a troubled, bewildered glance,
and made no reply. I supposed he had not understood me,
and repeated the question. Then he answered, dubiously,--