“Take the shop without the house above it.”
“I suppose I might put my head in to mind it,” said Mr. Polly, “and get a job with my body.”
“Not exactly that. But I thought you’d save a lot if you stayed on here—being all alone as you are.”
“Never thought of that, O’ Man,” said Mr. Polly, and reflected silently upon the needlessness of Miriam.
“We were talking of eighty pounds for stock,” said Johnson. “Of course seventy-five is five pounds less, isn’t it? Not much else we can cut.”
“No,” said Mr. Polly.
“It’s very interesting, all this,” said Johnson, folding up the half sheet of paper and unfolding it. “I wish sometimes I had a business of my own instead of a fixed salary. You’ll have to keep books of course.”
“One wants to know where one is.”
“I should do it all by double entry,” said Johnson. “A little troublesome at first, but far the best in the end.”
“Lemme see that paper,” said Mr. Polly, and took it with the feeling of a man who takes a nauseating medicine, and scrutinised his cousin’s neat figures with listless eyes.