"D'you mean to say that that bird ate five shillings' worth of seed in four weeks?"
"Well, so Noaks says; he told me he'd kept scores of birds in his time, but he'd 'never seen one so hearty at its grub before.' Those were the very words he used, and he said it was eating nearly all the day, and that's one reason why it looks such a dowdy colour, and never sings."
"Well, all I can say is, if you believe all Noaks tells you, you're a fool. But that's no reason why these two chaps should be done out of their money; so now, how are you going to pay them?"
"If they only wait till pocket-money's given out—" began Mugford.
"Oh no, we shan't!" interrupted Cross. "He only gets sixpence a week, and he's always breaking windows and other things, and having it stopped."
There seemed only one way out of the difficulty, and that was to put as it were an execution into Mugford's desk, and realize a certain amount of his private property.
"Look here," said Acton, "he must sell something.—Now, then," he added, turning to the defendant, "just shell out something and bring it here at once, and we'll have an auction."
The boy walked off to his desk, and after rummaging about in it for some little time, returned with a miscellaneous collection of small articles in his arms, which he proceeded to hand up one by one for the judge's inspection.
"What's this?"
"Oh, its a book that was given me on my birthday, called 'Lofty Thoughts for Little Thinkers.'"