"Well, young man," said the stout gentleman behind the counter, "what can we do for you?"
"I want to pawn my moonflowers," said Dickie.
The stout gentleman roared with laughter, and slapped a stout leg with a stout hand.
"Well, that's a good 'un!" he said, "as good a one as ever I heard. Why, you little duffer, they'd be dead long before you came back to redeem them, that's certain."
"You'd have them while they were alive, you know," said Dickie gently.
"What are they? Don't seem up to much. Though I don't know that I ever saw a flower just like them, come to think of it," said the pawnbroker, who lived in a neat villa at Brockley and went in for gardening in a gentlemanly, you-needn't-suppose-I-can't-afford-a-real-gardener-if-I-like sort of way.
"They're moonflowers," said Dickie, "and I want to pawn them and then get something else out with the money."
"Got the ticket?" said the gentleman, cleverly seeing that he meant "get out of pawn."
"Yes," said Dickie; "and it's my own Tinkler that my daddy gave me before he died, and my aunt Missa propagated it when I was in hospital."
The man looked carefully at the card.