That touch of her hand on his waistcoat, and the little waft of warm hair that went with it, had almost undone him.
"Don't you want it?" asked Pam, scanning him curiously.
"Not if you do, ah don't," said Ginger. "Ah 'll mek ye a present on it."
"Oh, but..." said Pam, with the tender mouth for a kindness, "it 's awfully good of you ... but we 've got such lots of them. As many as ever we want and more. You 'd better take it, Ginger."
"Ay, gie it me, then," said Ginger, holding his waistcoat pocket open, "'Appen ye weean't mind slippin' it back yessen, an' ye 'll know ah 've gotten it safe." The little warm waft went over him again, and he shut his eyes instinctively, as though to the passage of a supreme spirit whose glory was too great to be looked upon by mortal man. "Diz that mek us right?" he asked hazily, when the power had gone by, and he awoke to see Pam looking at him.
"Yes," said Pam, feeling it too mean to ask for the penny again after Ginger's recent display of generosity. "That makes us all right, Ginger, thank you."
"Same to you," said Ginger. "Ay, an' many on 'em." Then he knew his hour was come. "Ah want to know ..." he begged unsteadily, gripping himself tight to the counter's edge, and speaking in a voice that seemed to him to boom like great breakers on the shore, and must be audible to all Ullbrig, let alone the Post Office parlor—though Pam could hardly hear him, "if ye 'll remind me ... 'at ah've gotten seummut ... to ask ye?"
"I will if I can only remember," said Pam amiably, slipping a plump round profile of blue serge on the counter and swinging a leg to and fro—judging by the motion of her. "When do you want me to remind you, Ginger?"
"Noo, if ye like," said Ginger.
"This very minute?" asked Pam.