"It's the least I can possibly consider," she answered him firmly.
"You can't expect to play good fairy without paying for the privilege.
Now, Mr. Radbourne, what will you do?"
Jonathan, too, took out an envelope, wrote slowly a row of figures, scratched it out, wrote another and handed it doubtfully to Mrs. Jim.
"Will that do," he inquired, "for a starter?"
Mrs. Jim gave him a special smile. "That is something like." She waved Jonathan's figures under her husband's nose. "There, Mr. Pinchapenny! Are you blushing for shame?"
"Phew!" whistled Jim. "If that's how he squanders his money, he needn't ever come asking credit of me." He grinned at Jonathan. "Davy must be a mighty poor workman, when you'll pay so high to get rid of him."
"Oh, no," Jonathan protested. "It will be very hard to fill his place—in one way entirely impossible. But, you see, Davy and I have become good friends, and—"
"And of course," Mrs. Jim put in sweetly, "in friendship one forgets one is a shaver of notes."
"Oh, my hands are up," Jim groaned. "I'll match your figures,
Radbourne. But, for heaven's sake, don't raise me again!"
"What I'd like to know," said Jim, when Jonathan was gone, "is, why we are going to the poorhouse for Davy Quentin?"
"First," said his wife, "because we know Davy will do work that is worth while and because he is Davy. Second, because it is good for us to give a little out of our much."