When they were gone Mr. Kayll took out his purse, which he handed to Jack, with:
“Give that to your mother, Jacky. That’ll set her up for a little while.”
Mrs. Kayll poured the contents into her hand and counted ten sovereigns.
“All for me?” she asked.
“Of course it is. Make much of it. There’s no saying when the next will come.”
Jack took the empty purse to give back to his father, and turned it over in his hands, squeezing it, and pretending to try to find some stray coin that had been overlooked, but really slipping into it two sovereigns of his own, which he had held in his hand for some time, looking out for an opportunity of getting them into his father’s possession without the act being seen.
Poor Jack, who was generally supposed to care very little about his family, had been saving for a long time, depriving himself of anything he could so as to put a little aside from his weekly earnings, and had at last been unable longer to resist the temptation of giving Mr. Kayll a surprise. Yet his face expressed nothing as he handed back the purse, which his father weighed in his hand with mock grief.
“Feels terribly light again,” he said, returning it to his pocket as he believed empty.
Jack laughed inwardly, imagining the expression of his father’s face when he should find the money, and be unable to guess whence it had come. He controlled his mouth, and kept a serious face then, but once or twice afterwards during the evening a stifled chuckle proceeded from him, the meaning of which no one could discover.
Madge had come down again and was just about to put the food away, when there came a timid knock at the front door.