Part 17 (1/2)

”Oo!” he cried, ”what 'oo fink? Father sented us each a great big half-crown from London--all to spend. And we have spended it.”

”Well,” said Cissy genially, ”and what did you buy?”

”Us all wented down to Edam and boughted--oh! yots of fings.”

”Show me what you've bought, Toady Lion! I want to see! How much money had you, did you say?”

Toady Lion sat plump down in the thickest dust of the road, as he always did just wherever he happened to be at the time. If there chanced to be a pool there or a flower-bed--why, so much the worse.

But whenever Toady Lion wanted to sit down, he sat down. Here, however, there was only the dry dust of the road and a brown smatter of last year's leaves. The gallant knight was in a meditative mood and inclined to moralise.

”Money,” said Toady Lion thoughtfully, ”well, dere's the money that you get gived you, and wot Janet sez you muss put in your money-box.

That's no good! Money-box locked! Janet keeps money-box. 'Get money when you are big,' she sez--rubbage, I fink--shan't want it then--lots and lots in trowsies' pocket then, gold sixpences and fings.”

Toady Lion's eyes were dreamy and glorious, as if the angels were whispering to him, and he saw unspeakable things,

”Then there's miss'nary money in a round box wif a slit on the top.

That's lots better! Sits on mantlepiece in dining-room. Can get it out wif slimmy-jimmy knife when n.o.body's looking. Hugh John showed me how.

Prissy says boys who grab miss'nary's pennies won't not go to heaven, but Hugh John, he says--yes. 'Cause why miss'nary's money is for bad wicked people to make them good. Then if it is wicked to take miss'nary money, the money muss be meaned for us--to do good to me and Hugh John. Hugh John finks so. Me too!”

Toady Lion spoke in short sentences with pauses between, Cissy meantime nodding appreciation.

”Yes, I know,” she said meditatively, ”a thinbladed kitchen knife is best.”

But Sir Toady Lion had started out on the track of Right and Wrong, and was intent on running them down with his usual slow persistence.

”And then the miss'nary money is weally-weally our money, 'cause Janet _makes_ us put it in. Onst Hugh John tried metal b.u.t.tons off of his old serge trowsies. But Janet she found out. And he got smacked. An'

nen, us only takes a penny out when us is _tony-bloke_!”

”Is which? Oh, stone-broke,” laughed Cissy Carter, sitting down beside Toady Lion; ”who taught you to say that word?”

”Hugh John,” said the small boy wistfully; ”him and me tony-bloke all-ee-time, all-ee-ways, all-ee-while!”

”Does Prissy have any of--the missionary money?” said Cissy; ”I should!”

”No,” said Toady Lion sadly; ”don't you know? Our Prissy's awful good, juss howwid! She likes goin' to church, an' was.h.i.+ng, an' having to wear gloves. Girls is awful funny.”

”They are,” said Cissy Carter promptly. The funniness of her s.e.x had often troubled her. ”But tell me, Toady Lion,” she went on, ”does Hugh John like going to church, and being washed, and things?”

”Who? Hugh John--him?” said Toady Lion, with slow contempt. ”'Course he don't. Why, he's a boy. And once he told Mr. Burnham so--he did.”

Mr. Burnham was the clergyman of both families. He had recently come to the place, was a well-set up bachelor, and represented a communion which was not by any means the dominant one in Borders.h.i.+re.

”Yes, indeedy. It was under the elm. Us was having tea. An' Mist'r Burnham, he was having tea. And father and Prissy. And, oh! such a lot of peoples. And he sez, Mist'r Burnham sez to Hugh John, 'You are good little boy. I saw you in church on Sunday. Do you like to go to church?' He spoke like this-a-way, juss like I'm tellin' oo, down here under his silk waistcoat--kind of growly, but nice.”

”Hugh John say that he liked to go to church--'cos father was there listenin', you see. Then Mist'r Burnham ask Hugh John WHY he like to go to church, and of course, he say wight out that it was to look at Sergeant Steel's wed coat. An' nen everybody laugh--I don't know why.

But Mist'r Burnham he laughed most.”

Cissy also failed to understand why everybody should have laughed.