“Oh, that’s on the right-hand side,” Phyl said. “There was the ordinary four pounds for the bills, and then four and eightpence extra because Mary forgot to pay the baker’s bill and gave it back to me, and one and six Ted had borrowed, and minus two shillings mother took out for Freddie’s shoes mending,—oh, but she gave me a shilling of it back, so put plus a shilling more, Clif.”
“Whoa—steady!” said Clif, figuring away,—“never mind ‘minusing’—just give me your assets.”
He found the total came to £4 5s. 8d. “Now for the items of expenditure,” he said, and attacked the wild sheet.
[287]
]“Butcher, twelve and nine,” said Phyl’s statement. Then in brackets against this was the note [“but it really is only eleven and eight, because chops were ordered on Monday, not steak”]. “Baker, four and two, and four and eight from last week. Greengrocer, five and ninepence halfpenny, and a shilling for bananas from a boy at the door on Friday, and fourpence for Freddie to get water-melon for his lunch; total therefore for greengrocer, 6s. 1½d.”
“Well, there’s a shilling wrong there, my beautiful girl,” Clif said, making the correction; and Phyl wrote on a scrap of paper with relief, “Only 7s. 8½d. short.”
Wages, Milk, Butter, Ice, Grocer,—Clif unravelled their totals from the mass of notes and set them down in a column. “I get it to make four pounds three and twopence,” he said.
He compared it with Phyl’s total which said, “Four pounds four and twopence minus sixpence Richie borrowed and two shillings deposit on Weenie’s railway-ticket and two and six of my own money because the iceman had no change and I borrowed sixpence from the Fines Box for a poor man at the door. Therefore, total is four pounds four and eight, and owing still to me is two and six, and owing to the Fines Box sixpence.”
No wonder Phyl looked harassed.
“You see,” she said, “I ought to have one and sixpence change; that’s plain, isn’t it?”
“I’ve seen plainer things,” said Clif.