“Now, Joey,” said Mary (as we shall call her for the future), let us see what money we have. Mrs Chopper put all she had in my hands; poor, good old woman, bless her! Count it. Joey; it is yours.
“No, Mary; she gave it for both of us.”
“Never mind; do you keep it: for you see, Joey, it might happen that you might have to run off at a moment’s warning, and it would not do for you to be without money.”
“If I was to run off at a minute’s warning, I should then take it all with me, and it would not do for you to be left without any money, Mary; so we must halve it between us, although we will always make one purse.”
“Well, be it so; for if you were robbed, or I were robbed, on the way, the other might escape.”
They then divided the money, Joey putting his share into his pocket, and tying it in with a string. Mary dropped hers down into the usual deposit of women for bank-notes and billets-doux. As soon as this matter had been arranged, Mary opened her bundle, and took out a handkerchief, which she put on her shoulders; combed out the ringlets which she had worn, and dressed her hair flat on her temples; removed the gay ribbons from her bonnet, and substituted some plain brown in their stead.
“There,” says she; “now, Joey, don’t I look more respectable?”
“You do look more neat and more—”
“More modest, you would say, Joey. Well, and I hope in future to become what I look. But I look more fit to be your sister, Joey, for I have been thinking we had better pass off as brother and sister to avoid questioning. We must make out some story to agree in. Who shall we say that we are (as we dare not say who we really are)? I am looking out for service, and so are you, that’s very clear; father and mother are both dead; father was a baker. That’s all true, as far as relates to me: and as you are my brother, why you must take my father and mother. It’s no very great story, after all.”
“But it won’t do to say we came from Gravesend.”