After a very long time, the girl came back, bringing the money I was owed and the package of Turkey red calico. I returned to my office, but had time for very little work the rest of the day.
While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, he opened it an inch or so and settled back in his chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across his face.
" You look like the ragpicker's child, " he observed, his eyes taking in the mended lavender calico, streaked with perspiration and splotched here and there with water which had slopped from the basin.
She done out a tub of clothes on Monday, but she starched 'em afore they was wrenched, and blued a pink calico dress till I thought I should a died a laughin.
I said no more, but left. The next place I visited was a very large store. Of the first salesman I saw, I asked if they sold red calico like my sample.
She upset the tray of needles, forgot the silesia was to be 'twilled' till it was cut off, gave the wrong change, and covered herself with confusion by asking for lavender ribbon at the calico counter.
I went to the fourth counter to the left, and showed my sample to a salesman. He looked at it, and said, You'll get this down on the first floor -- calico department.
Yes, my dear Denise, when the Deleuzes started it, it had only one window in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; and such a tiny one, there was barely room for a couple of pieces of print and two or three pieces of calico.
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If we wore prints instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material, and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very moderate means.
A ragged calico mantle half encircled his body, while his nether garment was composed of an ordinary shirt, the sleeves of which were made to perform the office that is usually executed by a much more commodious arrangement.