“No, that wouldn’t do, because his ferret’s such a beggar.”
“Is he?” I said.
“Yes; he goes into a hole in a bank and comes out somewhere else, far enough off, and you can’t find him, or else he goes in and finds a rabbit, and eats him, and then curls up for a sleep, and you waiting all the time. That wouldn’t do; there isn’t time enough. You want all day for that, and we’ve only got an hour. Wish I hadn’t said we’d go and see the owls.”
“Shall we sit down and wait?” I suggested.
“No, no. I can’t wait. I never could. It’s horrid having to wait. Here, I know. It’s lunch-time, and we’re here. Let’s go into Polly Hopley’s and eat cakes and drink ginger-beer till it’s time to go.”
“Very well,” I said, willingly enough, for walking had made me thirsty.
“I haven’t got any money, but Polly will trust me.”
“I’ve got some,” I ventured to observe.
“Ah, but you mustn’t spend that. You’ve got to help pay for the gun. Come on.—Here, Polly, two bottles of ginger-beer, and sixpenn’orth of bis— I say, got any fresh gingerbread?”
This was to a stoutish, dark-eyed woman of about one-and-twenty, as we entered the cottage, in one of whose windows there was a shelf with a row of bottles of sweets and a glass jar of biscuits.