"This isn't what you lost, is it?"
"Yes," said Peter, seizing it eagerly. "You're a good boy to find it. A good boy!"
"Well," thought Charlie, wondering, as the old man hobbled off with his recovered treasure, "I'd rather be poor than care so much for money as that. People say old Peter's worth his thousands. I wonder whether it is so."
Charlie little dreamed how much old Peter was likely to influence his destiny, and how, at his instigation, before a week had passed over his head, he would find himself in a very disagreeable situation.
We must follow Peter.
With his eyes fixed on the ground he shuffled along, making more rapid progress than could have been expected. Occasionally he would stoop down and pick up any little stray object which arrested his attention, even to a crooked pin, which he thrust into his cloak, muttering as he did so, "Save my buying any. I haven't had to buy any pins for more'n ten years, and I don't mean to buy any more while I live. Ha! ha! Folks are so extravagant! They buy things they don't need, or that they might pick up, if they'd only take the trouble to keep their eyes open. 'Tisn't so with old Peter. He's too cunning for that. There goes a young fellow dressed up in the fashion. What he's got on must have cost nigh on to a hundred dollars. What dreadful extravagance! Ha! ha! It hasn't cost old Peter twenty dollars for the last ten years. If he had spent money as some do, he might have been in the poor-house by this time. Ugh! ugh! it costs a dreadful sum to live. If we could only come into the world with natural clothes, like cats, what a deal better it would be. But it costs the most for food. Oh dear! what a dreadful appetite I've got, and I must eat. All the money spent for victuals seem thrown away. I've a good mind, sometimes, to go to the poor-house, where it wouldn't cost me anything. What a blessing it would be to eat, if you could only get food for nothing!"
It is very clear that Peter would have been far better off, as far as the comforts of life are concerned, in the city almshouse; but there were some little obstacles in the way of his entering. For instance, it would scarcely have been allowed a public pensioner to go round quarterly to collect his rents,—a thing which Peter would hardly have relinquished.
Reflections upon the cost of living brought to Peter's recollection that he had nothing at home for supper. He accordingly stepped into a baker's shop close at hand.
"Have you got any bread cheap?" he inquired of the baker.
"We intend to sell at moderate prices."