Solemn nods from Tottie proclaim the serious consideration she has given to the general sleepiness and indifference of Ben Sparrow's customers.
Ben Sparrow picks up a fat currant and contemplates it with as much interest as a geologist would contemplate a new fossil. Tottie's eyes follow his movements; she sits like Patience on a monument, and another sigh escapes her as Ben Sparrow (again abstractedly) puts the currant in his mouth, and swallows it. Draw a veil mercifully over Tottie's feelings.
'It was in the middle of the night,' says Ben Sparrow with all the impressiveness demanded by the historical fact, 'that I first thought of making ME, and putting ME in the window to attract custom. I was a good deal puzzled about my legs, and my stomach got into my head, and I couldn't get it out; but little by little all my limbs and every other part of me came to me until the idea was complete. And now we'll try it--now we'll set to work and make a MAN! And if you're a good girl, and'll sit still, you shall see ME made.'
Tottie's experience in literature is very limited--extending no farther, indeed, than b-a-t bat, c-a-t cat, r-a-t rat, d-i-g dig, f-i-g fig, p-i-g pig--and she knows nothing of the terrible story of Frankenstein; therefore, she is not at all frightened at the idea of seeing a man made, nor has she any fear that it will turn out to be a monster. On the contrary, if Ben Sparrow's thoughts would only take a benevolent turn in the shape of a fig for Tottie, or a few plums for Tottie, or some candied sugar for Tottie, she would be prepared to enjoy the feat which Ben is about to perform as much as if it were the best bit of fun in the world.
'Now, then,' commences Ben, with a whimsical glance at Tottie, who smiles back at him like a true diplomatist, 'I don't know what part is generally made first, but perhaps it'll be as well to commence with the stomach. Here it is--here's my stomach.'
He takes one of the halves of the candied lemon-peel, and places it before him, round side up.
'There's a little too much sugar in me,' he says, with a more whimsical glance than the first; 'it'll make me rather too heavy, I'm afraid. And besides, Tottie, it ain't true to nature. My inside ain't got such a coating as this.'
He breaks a piece of candied sugar from the inside of his stomach, looks at Tottie, notices her wistful eyes, and gives it to her. She eats it eagerly, and so quickly as to cause amazement to Ben Sparrow, who says,
'You shouldn't eat so fast, Tottie. Good little girls don't eat so fast as that.'
Tottie, with feminine duplicity, accepts this warning in an inverted sense, and cries, with her mouth full of sugar,