"Five marks," she repeated, getting the money out and preparing to fill in
a couple of pawn-tickets.
"Make it ten, with the samovar!" entreated Vjera. The Jewess smiled.
"Do you think the samovar is of gold?" she inquired. "Six and a half for
the two. Take it or leave it."
Vjera looked at Schmidt anxiously as though to ask his opinion.
"They will not give more," he said, in Russian.
The girl took the money and the flimsy tickets and they went out into the
street. Vjera hesitated as to the direction she should take, and Schmidt
looked to her as though awaiting her orders.
"Twenty-eight and a half and six and a half are thirty-five," she said,
thoughtfully. "And we have nothing more to give, but this. I must sell it,
Herr Schmidt."
"Well, what is it?" he asked, glad to know the secret at last.
"It is my mother's hair. She cut it off herself when she knew she was
dying and she told me to sell it if ever I needed a little money."
The girl's voice trembled violently, and she turned her head away. Schmidt
was silent and very grave. Then Vjera began to move on again, clutching
the precious thing to her bosom and drawing her shawl over it.
"The best man for this lives in the Maffei Strasse," said Schmidt after a
few minutes.
"Show me the way." Vjera turned as he directed. At that moment she would
have lost herself in the familiar streets, had he not been there to guide
her.
The hairdresser's shop was brilliantly lighted, and as good fortune would
have it, there were no customers within.
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