"You promithed me a shilling," he reminded her. "I worked hard. I know now just where he ith. You can see him for yourthelf. It's worth a shilling, Rosa, eh?"
The girl's hand dived into the recesses of her half-fastened skirt. She produced a cheap purse of imitation Russia leather and solemnly counted out a sixpence and six coppers.
"You tell me the truth," she adjured him, parting with the coins reluctantly.
"Honest and sure," the boy promised, sweeping them into his pocket. "He came back again Tuesday night. He's at work now in the repairing room."
"You little shark!" his cousin cried indignantly. "Why, I should have found out myself if I'd gone straight in to grandfather."
"Maybe and maybe not," he answered, with his finger upon his nose and his hand guarding the pocket where the shilling reposed.
The girl was breathing quickly with excitement. The loss of the shilling, after all, was a slight thing to a girl earning man's wages.
"Listen," she enjoined, "don't you say I've been. I'm off back to tidy up. I shall be here in half an hour. He won't be gone by then."
"Sure not," was the confident assent. "He brought his valise. He'th come to stop."
Rosa almost tiptoed her way out of the shop, dived into the stream of people and disappeared. It was rather more than half an hour before her small cousin, with palms outstretched upon the counter, struggling to sell a one-and-sixpenny brooch to a girl who had a shilling to spend, glanced up and recognised her. His look of admiration was a genuine tribute. For a moment the glamour of the transaction upon which he was engaged, faded.