She assented with a ready smile. This was the beginning of a fancy which the Alderman always afterwards showed for Anna.
After breakfast Mrs. Sutton, Beatrice, and Anna arranged to go shopping:
'Father—brass,' Mrs. Sutton ejaculated in two monosyllables to her husband.
'How much will content ye?' he asked mildly.
'Give me five or ten pounds to go on with.'
He opened the left-hand front pocket of his trousers—a pocket which fastened with a button; and leaning back in his chair drew out a fat purse, and passed it to his wife with a preoccupied air. She helped herself, and then Beatrice intercepted the purse and lightened it of half a sovereign.
'Pocket-money,' Beatrice said; 'I'm ruined.'
The Alderman's eyes requested Anna to observe how he was robbed. At last the purse was safely buttoned up again.
Mrs. Sutton's purchases of food at the three principal shops of the village seemed startlingly profuse to Anna, but gradually she became accustomed to the scale, and to the amazing habit of always buying the very best of everything, from beefsteak to grapes. Anna calculated that the housekeeping could not cost less than six pounds a week for the five. At Manor Terrace three people existed on a pound. With her half-sovereign Beatrice bought a belt and a pair of sand-shoes, and some cigarettes for Henry. Mrs. Sutton bought a pipe with a nickel cap, such as is used by sailors. When they returned to the house, Mr. Sutton and Henry were smoking on the front. All five walked in a row down to the harbour, the Alderman giving an arm each to Beatrice and Anna. Near the 'Falcon' the procession had to be stopped in order to view the unfinished houses. Tom Kelly had a cabin partly excavated out of the rock behind the little quay. Here they found him entangled amid nets, sails, and oars. All crowded into the cabin and shook hands with its owner, who remarked with severity on their pallid faces, and insisted that a change of complexion must be brought about. Mynors offered him his tobacco-pouch, but on seeing the light colour of the tobacco he shook his head and refused it, at the same time taking from within his jersey a lump of something that resembled leather.
'Give him this, Henry,' Mrs. Sutton whispered, handing Mynors the pipe which she had bought.