"I'll give you two pounds," he had said--"And that's about as much as I could sell it for myself."
Two pounds! It was an insult to that dear, little, old, white-haired lady who had scraped and saved to buy him the best she knew.
"It cost ten pounds!" John said boldly.
"Ten pounds!" The laugh he gave was like the breaking of glass. "The person who gave ten pounds for that must have wanted to get rid of money in a hurry."
Wanted to get rid of money in a hurry! If he could have seen the number of dainty shawls the thin white fingers had knitted and the trembling hands had sold in order to amass the fortune of that ten pounds, he would not have talked of hurry.
"I'll give you two pounds five," he had added. "Not a farthing more and if you take it away somewhere else and then bring it back here again, I'll only give you two pounds, what I said at first."
When the blood is mounting to your forehead, when it seems you are crushed about by those watching your discomfort till the warmth of their pressing, phantom bodies brings the perspiration out in beads upon your face, you will take anything to get away.
The pawnbroker had made out the ticket as John mumbled his name and address.
"Got a penny--a penny for the ticket?" said the man.
To be compelled to make this confession--the most unabsolvable of all--that he had nothing in his pocket, was the crisis to his suffering. The high priest sniffed, smiled and counted out two pounds four and elevenpence. Then John had turned and fled.