"Cahn't do dat, missy. Got to sell flowers and roses. Sell 'em for de fam'ly, missy."
"But in the afternoon you can come," said Corny. "There isn't any selling done then. We'll pay you."
"How much?" asked Priscilla.
This question was referred to me, and I offered sixpence a day.
The money in this place is English, of course, as it is an English colony; but there are so many visitors from the United States, that American currency is as much in use, for large sums, as the pounds-shillings-and-pence arrangement. But all sums under a quarter are reckoned in English money,—pennies, half-pennies, four, six and eight-pences, and that sort of thing. One of our quarters passes for a shilling, but a silver dime wont pass in the shops. The darkeys will take them—or almost anything else—as a gift. I didn't have to get our money changed into gold. I got a draft on a Nassau house, and generally drew greenbacks. But I saw, pretty plainly, that I couldn't draw very much for this new monarchical undertaking, and stay in Nassau as long as we had planned.
"A whole afternoon," exclaimed Priscilla, "for sixpence!"
"Why not?" I asked. "That's more than you generally make all day."
"Only sixpence!" said Priscilla, looking as if her tender spirit had been wounded. Corny glanced at me with an air that suggested that I ought to make a rise in the price, but I had dealt with these darkeys before.
"That's all," I said.
"All right, then, boss," said Priscilla. "I'll do it. What you want me to do?"