Who's sorry now?

that was on sale without trying it on, and the seam at the shoulder was wrong. Too wide. That tailor just pinned it, and even poked her arm with a pin. When she went back, he’d just folded the fabric back into the shoulder and made the sleeves bunch up. Grandpa told her to bring the dress in when she picked up the little girls’ dresses and he’d fix it correctly.”
    Mrs. Smithson went on, supposing Robert was more interested than he really was. ”She brought in those adorable little girls she adopted to have their dresses let out at the hems. They’re getting taller. Grandpa told her the dresses wouldn’t look good that way. The inside color wouldn’t match the outside. So he took her back where he has all his fabrics and let her choose fabrics that matched some of the colors in the dresses and added them to the bottom hems, sort of like petticoats. He also told the girls how pretty they were.”
    ”Mrs. White is dotty about those little girls,” Robert said. Anybody else come in?”
    ”Later on a man came in and just looked around.”
    ”Did you recognize him?”
    ”Never saw him before.”
    ”What did he look like?”
    ”I didn’t pay much attention. I was fixing Grandpa a sandwich. A smallish man, shorter than I. Not quite clean, skinny. Thinning brown hair. Grandpa asked if he needed anything tailored. The man just shrugged. He was watching as Grandpa was hanging up his shears on the back wall, and putting his other things in drawers under the counter. I’ll make the coffee. Keep a close eye on Grandpa.”
    Watching Mr. Kurtz wasn’t as easy as it sounded. The old man had almost finished scraping off the swastika and was eyeing the extra blob of paint. As he approached it, Robert said, ”You can’t scrape that off until the finger print man gets here.”
    ”Yes, I will. My window must be clean.”
    Robert had to cup his hand carefully over the paint spot to keep the tailor from destroying it. Kurtz was angry, and he went inside to get a damp rag to clean up the paint that had fallen onto the sill of the window. Robert maintained his uncomfortable stance, until Chief Walker and the fingerprint expert arrived half an hour later. By then Robert’s right shoulder and wrist were in agony from holding his hand cupped over the fingerprint.
    ”I’ve never seen such a fi ngerprint,” the expert said with a laugh. ”Talk about a stupid crook.” He rummaged through the bag he’d brought along, dusted some powder over the f ingerprint, lifted it with a bit of sticky paper, and put the paper in a small box with great care.
    ”It will take a while to compare this to our list of known criminals.”
    ”How long?” Robert asked.
    ”Probably a week.Maybe more.”
    ”May Mr. Kurtz scrape it off? He’s determined to do so.”
    ”I probably should take a second sample then,” the fingerprint expert said. ”Just to be sure we have a good copy, and so someone else can help me search the records we have on file.”
    ”Do it now, please,” Robert begged. ”My arm aches from protecting it.”
    When the two boxes had been taken away, Mr. Kurtz i mmediately scraped away the f ingerprint. Then he proceeded to clean the entire window with rags and vinegar.
    Chief Walker asked if Robert had already had breakfast. Robert admitted he had, but said, ”I could do with another. Mrs. Prinney has run out of flour so there was no bread this morning. First time it’s ever happened.”
    Howard complained, ”The woman at the boardinghouse tried to use last night’s corned beef in a horrible omelet. The corned beef had dried out and the eggs were overcooked. Let’s go to Mabel’s and have a good early lunch. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
    They were both so hungry that they didn’t speak until they’d eaten. They were at a table at the very back of the restaurant and the place was almost deserted.
    ”Here’s my question,” Howard said, seeming somewhat reluctant to put it bluntly. ”You take boarders at Grace and Favor. Miss Twinkle and Mrs. Tarkington. Would I qualify as another boarder?”
    ”Of course you would, I assume. The women, in particular, would like to have another man around, especially an officer of the law. But are you sure you want to be that far from town?”
    ”It’s downhill all the way,” Walker said, folding his napkin and putting it beside his empty plate. ”Not as time consuming as fighting my way up the hill.”
    ”But you’d need your telephone line