"Not much, father!" zealously cried Mary, not relishing so much modesty, "why, didn't you nail them shelves with your own hands?"
"Well, child," candidly replied her father, "I think I may say I did."
"And didn't you make all them square boxes, a whole dozen of them?"
"Hold your tongue you little chit, and help Miss Gray there to put up the jams and marmalades."
"And didn't you paint the walls?" triumphantly exclaimed Mary, without heeding his orders.
"Who else did, I should like to know?"
"And the counter! who made the counter?"
"Not I, Mary. I only polished it up."
"Well, but what was it before you polished it up, father?" asked the pertinacious daughter.
"Not much to speak of; that's the truth. Why, bless you, Mrs. Gray," he added, turning confidentially towards her, "you never saw such a poor object as that counter was in all your born days. It caught my eye at the corner of one of them second-hand shops in the New Cut. The man was standing at the door, whistling, with his hands in his pockets. 'That's fire-wood,' says I to him. 'No 'tain't, it's as good a counter as ever a sovereign was changed on.' 'My good man,' says I, 'it's firewood, and I'll give you five shillings for it.' Law, but you should have seen how he looked at me. Well, to cut a long story short, he swore it was a counter, and I swore it was firewood, and so, at length, I give him ten shillings for it, and brought it home and cleaned it down, and scraped the dirt, inch thick, off, and washed it, and painted it, and polished it, and look at it now, Mrs. Gray, look at it now!"