Amused, he said: "I know how old you are. You're twenty."

"You're a wizard." She hobbled to the door. "I'm going home and change. Is the job decided? Everything's set, isn't it?"

His humor departed. "The job is open, yes."

"Well, I'm applying. Do I get it or not?"

"You get it," he said, with a tug of emotion. "At two-fifty a month, a five-day week, everything we talked about when you were in before." Good God, it had been four months. He had waited for her that long. "When do you want to start?"

"I'll be back this afternoon, as soon as I've changed." For a moment she lingered. "What should I wear? How formal do you want me to dress? Heels, I suppose."

"No, not necessarily." But he experienced a kind of delight at the idea. "You can wear flats, if you want. But definitely stockings."

"Stockings."

"Don't go overboard ... but don't come in wearing jeans. Whatever you'd wear to go shopping downtown."

"That's what I thought," she said, consulting with herself. "How often do you pay, every two weeks?"

"Every two weeks."

Without embarrassment, she asked: "Can I have ten dollars right now?"

He was partly captivated, partly outraged. "Why? What for?"

"Because I'm broke, that's what for."

Shaking his head, he got out his wallet and handed her a ten-dollar bill. "Maybe I'll never see you again."

"Don't be silly," Mary Anne said, and disappeared out the doorway, leaving him alone, as he had been before.

At one-thirty in the afternoon the girl returned, wearing a cotton skirt and a short-sleeved blouse. Her hair was brushed back and her face was shiny with eagerness; she looked ready to go to work. But with her was an indolent-looking young man.

"Where can I put my things?" she asked, meaning her purse. "In the back?"

Schilling showed her the steps leading to the basement stockroom. "That's the safest place, down there." Reaching into the stairwell, he snapped on the light. "The bathroom's down there, and a closet. Not very large, but enough for coats."

While Mary Anne was absent, the young man sauntered up to him. "Mr. Schilling, they told me you'd give me the word on music."

From his coat pocket the man got out a crumpled envelope; he began flattening it on the counter. It was a list of composers, Schilling saw; all contemporary and all individualistic experimentalists.

"You're a musician?" Schilling asked.

"Yeah, I play bop piano over at the Wren." He scrutinized Schilling. "Let's see how good you are."

"Oh," Schilling said, "I'm good, all right. Ask me something."

"Ever heard of a fellow named Arnie Scheinburg?"

"Schonberg," Schilling corrected. He couldn't tell if he was being made fun of. "Arnold Schonberg. He wrote the Gurre lieder. "

"How long have you been in this racket?"

He computed. "Well, in one form or another since the late twenties. This is my first retail shop, though."

"You like music?"

"Yes," Schilling said, worried in an obscure way. "Very much."

"Don't you do anything else? Don't you get outdoors?" The young man strolled around, taking in the store. "This is an elegant little shop. Shows good taste. But tell me, Schilling, don't you sometimes feel cut off from the broad masses?"

Mary Anne appeared from the back. "Well? Let's get with it."

Having loaded the young man up with records, Schilling steered him into a booth. At the counter Mary Anne was busily opening the cash register.

"Friend of yours?" Schilling asked, amused that, in her world, introductions did not exist.

"Paul plays over at the Wren," she answered, starting to count the one-dollar bills. As soon as she had left the store she had gone home to her apartment, changed, and then hurried to the Wren to pay Paul back his ten dollars.. . money that had kept her going since she cashed her final check from the telephone company.

"That place?" Nitz had said. "That record shop? That's the fellow they said I should talk to."

"Come along," Mary Anne had urged him, timid at the idea of returning to the store alone. "Please, Paul. As a favor to me."

He had raised an eyebrow. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"You scared?"

"Sure I'm scared. It's a new job; it's the first day."

"What do you know about this character?"

Evasively, she had said; "I met him once. He's an older man."

Tossing down his paperbacked Western, Paul Nitz had climbed to his feet. "Okay, I'll go along and chaperone you." He clapped her warmly on the back. "I'll even challenge him to a duel-just give me the nod."

"What are you doing?" Schilling asked, watching her fingers fly as she counted the bills.

"Seeing what we need from the bank."

When she had completed her list, Schilling showed her the miniature safe by the night-light. "I go to the bank once a week. Otherwise I draw from this."

"You should have told me." Finishing with the money, she went to get the broom. "I'm going to clean up this place," she informed him. "It really needs it ... how long has it been since you swept out?"

Disconcerted, Schilling went on sorting records. Later he stepped into the back office and plugged in his Silex coffeemaker. In the first listening booth Mary's friend had barricaded himself behind his records; he stared blankly out.

Here was a girl, Schilling reflected, who, on her first day at work, had borrowed money from her employer, had set her own moment of appearance, and, when she finally appeared, had brought along a friend prepared to spend all day listening to the store's records. And now, instead of waiting dutifully for instructions, she was announcing her own tasks.

"Why don't you move the counter back?" Mary Anne said as he appeared with the coffee.

"Why?" He began filling two cups.

"So you can get directly to the window." She gave the counter a fretful swat. "It blocks the way."

"Miss Reynolds," Schilling said, realizing that he was entering a pattern that must have included all her employers, "put down your broom and come over here. I want to talk to you."

She smiled at him, a quick flash of her very small lips. "Wait until I'm finished," she said, and disappeared out the front door with the dustpan. When she returned she found a dust cloth and began going over the surface of the counter.

Nettled, Schilling sipped his afternoon coffee. "I think you should learn how my inventory is handled and what I expect in customer relationships. I'm trying out something new of my own; I want a personal, more individual arrangement. We should know every customer by name, and we should learn to use those names as soon as they set foot inside the store."

Mary Anne nodded as she dusted.

"When the customer asks for something, you've got to be able to respond with information, not a slack-jawed stare. Suppose I come in here and say to you: 'I heard a Bach piano concerto played on the violin. What is it?' Could you do anything with that?"

"Of course not," Mary Anne answered.

"Well," he conceded, "I don't really expect you to. That's my job. But you've got to learn enough to handle the regular classical buyer. You'll have to know how to meet requests for the standard symphonic works. Suppose somebody comes in and asks you for a good Dvorak symphony. You better be sure how many he wrote, which are the best recordings, and what we have in stock. And you've got to know Smetana and Brahms and Suk and Mahler and all the other composers a buyer of Dvorak might enjoy."

"That's what Nitz is doing," Mary Anne said.

"Nitz? What's that?"

"Paul Nitz, in the booth. He never heard any of that serious music before."

"My Point," Schilling said sharply, "is that whenever a buyer is introduced to a new field by a salesperson, the buyer becomes dependent on that salesperson. That means you have a responsibility not to sell the buyer short by simply pushing merchandise on him for the sake of getting rid of it. That's where this business becomes an art with standards. We're not selling gum or soda pop-we're selling, to some people at least, elements that make up a way of life."