“Fourpence. Now look here,” said the greasy owner of all this caged life with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back hurriedly on to the wainscoting of hutches with which the shop was lined. “Lookee here. I ain’t agoin’ to have you a comin’ in here a turnin’ the whole place outer winder, an’ prizing every animile in the stock just for your larks, so don’t think it! If you’re a buyer, be a buyer—but I never had a customer yet as wanted to buy mice, and lizards, and toads, and guineas all at once. So hout you goes.”
“Oh! wait a minute,” said the wretched Cyril, feeling how foolishly yet well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead’s instructions. “Just tell me one thing. What do you want for the mangy old monkey in the third hutch from the end?”
The shopman only saw in this a new insult.
“Mangy young monkey yourself,” said he; “get along with your blooming cheek. Hout you goes!”
“Oh! don’t be so cross,” said Jane, losing her head altogether, “don’t you see he really does want to know that!”
“Ho! does ’e indeed,” sneered the merchant. Then he scratched his ear suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he knew the ring of truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, and three minutes before he would have been glad to sell the “mangy old monkey” for ten shillings. Now—
“Ho! ’E does, does ’e,” he said, “then two pun ten’s my price. He’s not got his fellow that monkey ain’t, nor yet his match, not this side of the equator, which he comes from. And the only one ever seen in London. Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the nail, or hout you goes!”
The children looked at each other—twenty-three shillings and fivepence was all they had in the world, and it would have been merely three and fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father had given to them “between them” at parting.
“We’ve only twenty-three shillings and fivepence,” said Cyril, rattling the money in his pocket.
“Twenty-three farthings and somebody’s own cheek,” said the dealer, for he did not believe that Cyril had so much money.