'Would you please multiply it by a shilling a dozen, and say what it comes to,' was Hermie's further request.
Miss Browne again took a surprising time to do the simple sum.
'A hundred and fifty pounds,' she said.
'That is for the first year,' Hermie said; 'but now would you please work it out on this big piece of paper, and see what we should get the second year. Two hundred and forty fowls——'
'And the twelve you began with, too,' said Roly.
Hermie was quite willing to be cautious.
'We won't count them, we'll allow for them dying, too,' she said. 'Two hundred and forty fowls with, say, twenty chickens each in the year. What's that?'
Miss Browne's pencil worked.
'Four thousand eight hundred,' she said.
'And they lay one hundred and fifty eggs a year.'