Main Characters in "A Lickpenny Lover"

   In the following story there are only two main characters as in was mentioned previously - a young shopgirl Masie and a rich fellow Irving Carter. Among the minor characters of the story we see other shopgirls and consumers of the Big Store. 

  All the characters are described both directly and indirecty through their own speech and actions, and the speech of other people or narrator express his attitude by himself. 

   Speaking about Masie, the story opens with the description of  her working  place and then the author pays our attention on her character and appearence. Owning to copmosite sentence structures, usage of enumeration, comparison and epithets O. Henry tries to express his positive and even affectionate attitude towards this nice girl. At the same time, he wants to arose feeling of admiration in the readers of the story:

  " For Masie was beautiful. She was a deep-tinted blonde, with the calm poise of a lady who cooks butter cakes in a window. She stood behind her counter in the Biggest Store; and as you closed your band over the tape - line for your glove measure you thought of Hebe; and as you looked again you wondered how she had come by Minervas eyes"

  As for the male character of the story, Mr. Carter, he appears in the shop by chance looking for his mother. It is said in the text that Irving is a painter, traveller, poet and automobilist, so it seems like he does not have a particular job but only spends his ( or maybe not his) money however he likes. Firstly the narrator introduces him as an authoritative self - asuured person, but something changes when he notices Masie in the shop among the other saleswomen:

 "And then Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, etc., felt a warm flush rise to his aristocratically pale face. But not from diffidence. The blush was intellectual in origin. He knew in a moment that he stood in the ranks of the ready-made youths who wooed the giggling girls at other counters. Himself leaned against the oaken trysting place of a cockney Cupid with a desire in his heart for the favor of a glove salesgirl.”