"Yes, I s'pose we must. It always makes me feel bad to stop when there's good things in the house," and Master Plummer told his friend of the "great time" he had had on a certain rainy day, when it would have been useless to attend to business, and the larder was well filled.
"I kept right on eatin', from mornin' till it was time to go to bed; didn't rush, you know, but stuck at it."
"Didn't it make you sick?"
"Well, I did have a pretty bad ache before mornin'; but jest as likely as not that would have come whether I'd eat anything or not. Mis' Carter says if I don't stop bein' so hungry all the time I'll fill up a glutton's grave, but how can a feller keep from wantin' something to eat?"
"I don't s'pose it's anybody's business, Plums, what you do, so long as you pay the bills; but it does seem to me that it would be better if you'd get on more of a hustle when you're at work, an' stop thinkin' so much about vittles. I can't see how you earn money enough to keep this thing up."
"Seems like I've got some push to me if I do it, don't it?" Master Plummer replied, complacently, and there the conversation came to an end.
Plums, having ministered to his appetite, stretched himself at full length on the ground, and it seemed to Joe as if he had but just assumed that position when his heavy breathing told that he had fallen asleep.
Now and then from the street beyond could be heard the rumbling of a carriage, sounding unusually loud owing to the stillness of the night. At intervals the hum of voices told that belated seekers after pleasure were returning home, and, in fact, everything reminded the ruined fruit merchant that the time for rest was at hand.
Joe's eyelids were heavy with sleep, yet he resisted the impulse to close them, because it seemed necessary he should watch over the princess.
The candle, having burned down to the neck of the bottle in which it had been placed, spluttered and fretted because its life was so nearly at an end, and Joe replaced it with a fresh one.