'Give me that stone,' said the barber.
'No,' answered Curdie. 'You have just told me YOU don't want a stone, and I do.'
The barber took Curdie by the collar.
'Come, now! You pay me for that window.'
'How much?' asked Curdie.
The barber said, 'A crown.' But the baker, annoyed at the heartlessness of the barber, in thinking more of his broken window than the bump on his friend's forehead, interfered.
'No, no,' he said to Curdie; 'don't you pay any such sum. A little pane like that cost only a quarter.'
'Well, to be certain,' said Curdie, 'I'll give a half.' For he doubted the baker as well as the barber. 'Perhaps one day, if he finds he has asked too much, he will bring me the difference.'
'Ha! ha!' laughed the barber. 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'
But as he took the coin from Curdie's hand he grasped it in affected reconciliation and real satisfaction. In Curdie's, his was the cold smooth leathery palm of a monkey. He looked up, almost expecting to see him pop the money in his cheek; but he had not yet got so far as that, though he was well on the road to it: then he would have no other pocket.