"Come along, Commodore," said Stark, "we'll try Mrs. Luscombe at the next stall. Lovey Lee's too grasping."
At that moment William Burnham approached and saw the fowls.
"Just what I want," he exclaimed. "Poor Matthew Mercer is still alive; but he can't eat any victuals, so we'll make some chicken broth for him. What's your price, Mrs. Lee?"
Lovey glanced at Stark, and, seeing that he was not concerned, understood that she might sell safely.
"Half-a-crown, an' I'd sooner fling 'em into the Moor for the foxes than take a penny less," she said.
Commodore Miller turned to a sentry and asked the market value of fowls. The man did not know, but a turnkey passing at that moment answered him.
"Fowls are tenpence each—eighteen pence a pair to-day," he said.
Whereupon Lovey called down lightning upon his head, and behaved with such impropriety that the man turned round in a rage and threatened to have her removed out of the markets. Upon this she relapsed into sulky silence, and presently, after some haggling, took the money that was her due, and almost flung the fowls at Burnham.
Anon Mr. Cuffee departed with the poultry under his arm, and, guessing what to expect, he made a careful examination. A few words much to the point were scrawled upon paper and packed within one bird. Lovey Lee had written an answer to Stark's invitation.
"Right. Tell me what you want and what you'll give. Put message in a chaw of baccy next week."