“A few? How many do you suppose?” But our friend checked himself. “Do you suppose if I had been serious I’d tell?”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” sighed Mr. Vetch. Then he went on: “You want to take her to my shop, eh?”
“I’m sorry to say she won’t go there. She wants something in the Strand: that’s a great point. She wants very much to see The Pearl of Paraguay. I don’t wish to pay anything, if possible; I’m sorry to say I haven’t a penny. But as you know people at the other theatres and I’ve heard you say that you do each other little favours from place to place, à charge de revanche, it occurred to me you might be able to get me an order. The piece has been running a long time and most people (except poor devils like me) must have seen it: therefore there probably isn’t a rush.”
Mr. Vetch listened in silence and presently said: “Do you want a box?”
“Oh no; something more modest.”
“Why not a box?” asked the fiddler in a tone the youth knew.
“Because I haven’t the clothes people wear in that sort of place,—if you must have such a definite reason.”
“And your young lady—has she the clothes?”
“Oh, I daresay; she seems to have everything.”
“Where does she get ’em?”