'Now for my legs, and there I am. More cinnamon!'
Two sticks of cinnamon stuck in the bottom of his candied stomach, and then clothed with raisins, form his legs, and there he is, complete.
'I think I'll do,' he says complacently.
At this moment a voice calls 'Shop!' and a fairy, in the shape of a shoeless ragged girl, taps upon the counter. Ben Sparrow goes into the shop to serve, and Tottie is left alone with his effigy. Now it has been mentioned above that Tottie has a vice, and this is it: she is afflicted, not with a raging tooth, but with a tooth so sweet as to weaken her moral sense, so to speak: she is unable to resist temptation when it presents itself to her in the shape of sweetmeats or fruit, and her notions as to the sacredness of such-like property are so loose that (no one being by to see her do it) she helps herself. And yet it is a proof that she possesses a wakeful conscience, that she turns her back upon herself when she pilfers, as if she would wish to make herself believe that she is unconscious of what she is doing. Thus, seeing, say, a bowl of currants near, and no person within sight, she will approach the bowl stealthily, and, turning her back to it, will put her hand behind her, and take a fistful, with an air of thinking of something else all the while. And it is a proof that the moral obligation of her conscience is not entirely dormant, that, after the act is committed and enjoyed, she will, under the influence of a human eye, instantly defend herself without being accused, by 'No, I never! no, I never!' This express admission of guilt she can no more resist than she can resist the temptation itself. At the present time the sweet effigy of Ben Sparrow is lying within reach upon the table. Shutting her eyes. Tottie stretches out her hand, and plucking her grandfather's left leg bodily from his candied stomach, instantly devours it, cinnamon, raisins, and all--and has just made the last gulp when Ben Sparrow, having served his customer, reënters the parlour. He casts a puzzled look at his dismembered effigy, and mutters,
'Well! if I didn't think I had made my two legs, may I be sugared!' Which sweet oath is exactly appropriate to the occasion. Then he turns to Tottie, who is gazing unconsciously at vacancy, with a wonderfully intense expression in her eyes, and she immediately shakes her head piteously, and cries,
'No, I never! no, I never!'
Ben Sparrow, having his doubts aroused by this vehement asseveration of innocence, says mournfully,
'O, Tottie! Tottie! I didn't think you'd do it! To begin to eat me up like that!'
But Tottie shakes her head still more vehemently, and desperately reiterates, 'No, I never! no, I never!' With the frightful consciousness that the proofs of her guilt are in her inside, and that she has only to be cut open for them to be produced.
Ben Sparrow, with a grave face, makes himself another leg, moving himself, however, out of Tottie's reach with reproachful significance. An unexpected difficulty occurs at this point. Being top-heavy he cannot balance himself upon his legs; but Ben is of an ingenious turn of mind, and he hits upon the expedient of shoring himself up from behind with stout sticks of cinnamon. Then, setting himself up, he gazes at himself in admiration. Tottie's eyes are also fixed upon the effigy; it possesses a horrible fascination for her.