“No—except there’s no need to cope them. I don’t know what coping is.”
“It’s what you want,” he said brutally. “Muzzling.”
“Afraid of my bite, too?” asked Jinny, and turning towards the interior shelf that held the smaller parcels, she began to sing softly to herself:
“A dashing young lad from Buckingham.”
He had been expecting “Canada” at the end, and felt somehow disappointed at its absence. “But when I gave the order,” he rejoined notwithstanding, “I didn’t know that the Bradmarsh Carrier was a girl.”
“That didn’t prevent you using her when you did know,” she said quietly.
“When have I used her?” he cried hotly.
“Well, what about this?” She produced from the shelf in the cart a long parcel half enclosed by a string in broken, dirty paper, within which showed a layer of grimy straw.
“But what is it?”
“That’s not my business.” She tendered it downwards.