Part 2 (1/2)
”Come and help us? By acting?”
”If I'm going to be a Wonderful Girl--and I am going to be--it's quite time I was beginning. Young Betty was at the height of his fame when he was twelve. So I thought I would commence by making a lot of money for you here, which would keep you all from starving; and then, of course, I shall go on to London and make the rest of my fortune there.”
”I see. Well, this bangs Banagher. Banagher it bangs.”
What he meant I could not say. But he should have been a capital actor, because not a muscle of his face moved. A man behind him laughed--stinging me as with the lash of a whip.
The big woman delivered herself of her former e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.
”Poor dear!”
The potato washer remarked,--
”Strikes me, my girl, that you've a good opinion of yourself.”
The grey-headed man had his eyes upon what I had in my hand.
”What might you happen to have there?”
”It's some food which I have brought for you.”
”For me in particular, or for all the lot of us?”
”It's for the seven.”
”The seven? I see. The seven who divided those two sovereigns.”
”Yes. It's some German sausage. I hope you like German sausage.”
”It's my favourite joint.”
I endeavoured to correct what I imagined to be a still further display of his ignorance.
”I don't think that German sausage is a joint. It's not generally looked upon as such. It's a long, round, cold thing, off which, you know, they cut it in slices.”
I pa.s.sed him the parcel, he removing--for the first time--one of his hands from his pockets for the purpose of taking it, balancing it on his open palm as if on a scale. It was a pretty grimy piece of newspaper, and was not of a size to suggest extensive contents. I became more and more conscious of its wretched smallness as, with every outward appearance of care and gravity, he slowly unwrapped it.
The others gathered closer round, as if agog with curiosity. Finally there were revealed three or four attenuated slices. He held them out at arm's length in front of them.
”For seven!”
”There isn't much,” I managed to murmur, oppressed, all at once, by the discovery of what a dreadful little there really was. ”But I had only twopence.”
”You had only twopence, so you purchased two pennyworths of German sausage--for seven.”
”Of course I'll earn a deal of money for you besides.”
A girl came rus.h.i.+ng into the tent behind me. The interruption was welcome, for I instinctively felt that matters had reached a point at which a diversion of any sort was to be desired. But I was far from being prepared for the proclamation which she instantly made.
”Here's the lady come!--I've been and fetched her!”
To my blank astonishment there appeared--Miss Pritchard. That intelligent young woman, having a shrewd eye for a possible reward, had availed herself of the information which had been extracted from me to rush off to the school to proclaim my whereabouts, receiving, as I afterwards learnt, a s.h.i.+lling for her pains. Never before had I seen Miss Pritchard in such a state of agitation; and no wonder, considering the pace at which she must have torn along the road.