"So that, first and last, you have to handle about sixty pounds each week, and all in silver and copper. Fancy! What a weight it must be!"
"Ay!" he said, but with less enthusiasm.
"That's three thousand a-year," she continued.
Her tone was still innocuously sympathetic. She seemed to be talking of money as she might have talked of counters. Nevertheless, he felt that he had been entrapped.
"I expect you must have saved at the very least thirty thousand pounds by this time," she reflected, judicially, disinterestedly—speaking as a lawyer might have spoken.
He offered no remark.
"That means another thirty pounds a week," she resumed. Decidedly she was marvellous at sums of interest.
He persisted in offering no remark.
"By the way," she said, "I must look into my household accounts. How much did you tell me you allowed Mrs. Butt a week for expenses?"
"A pound," he replied, shortly.