Guster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and without removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful distinctness, “Go away!”
“Now, my friends,” says Chadband, “since I am upon this theme, and in my lowly path improving it—”
Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur “one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two.” The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, “Go away!”
“Now, my friends,” says Mr. Chadband, “we will inquire in a spirit of love—”
Still Guster reiterates “one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two.”
Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile, says, “Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!”
“One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which he wish to know what the shilling ware for,” says Guster, breathless.
“For?” returns Mrs. Chadband. “For his fare!”
Guster replied that “he insistes on one and eightpence or on summonsizzing the party.” Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the tumult by lifting up his hand.
“My friends,” says he, “I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!”