"How much money did Mr. Bellew give you to—buy the furniture?"
Miss Anthea was sitting in her great elbow chair, leaning forward with her chin in her hand, looking at him in the way which always seemed to Adam as though she could see into the verimost recesses of his mind. Therefore Adam twisted his hat in his hands, and stared at the ceiling, and the floor, and the table before Miss Anthea, and the wall behind Miss Anthea—anywhere but at Miss Anthea.
"You ax me—how much it were, Miss Anthea?"
"Yes, Adam."
"Well,—it were a goodish sum."
"Was it—fifty pounds?"
"Fifty pound!" repeated Adam, in a tone of lofty disdain, "no, Miss
Anthea, it were not fifty pound."
"Do you mean it was—more?"
"Ah!" nodded Adam, "I mean as it were a sight more. If you was to take the fifty pound you mention, add twenty more, and then another twenty to that, and then come ten more to that,—why then—you'd be a bit nigher the figure—"
"A hundred pounds!" exclaimed Anthea, aghast.