"Oh! my darling!" he cried, "we're ruined—we're lost!—that tea is Joseph Saunders's tea; and he gives it for four shillings, and it's better than my five. And I can't give it, nor I can't get it neither," he added, despairingly; "for I have not got credit, and little cash; and I buy dear, and dear I must sell, or starve!"
Of this speech, all Mary understood, was that the tea she had been making was tea from Mr. Saunders's shop. She deliberately rose, poured the contents of the teapot on the ashes in the hearth; the contents of her own teacup, then of her father's quickly followed; then she sat down, folded her arms, and uttered a grim: "There! I only wish I could serve him so," she added after a pause.
But what Mary meant by this wish—to pour out Joseph Saunders like his own tea, seems rather a fantastic image, even for hate—the present writer does not venture to determine.
"It's all over!" sadly said Jones; "we can't compete with him. I'll shut up shop, and we'll go to some other neighbourhood, and live in our old way. After all, I'll not be a richer nor a poorer man than before my cousin left me the sixty pound."
"You ain't got no spirit!" cried Mary, turning scarlet with anger. "Give in to that fellow!—I'd have more spirit than that," she added with mighty scorn.
Her father attempted to remonstrate; but the wilful little thing would not listen to facts or to reason. She was sure Saunders could not keep up much longer—that she was. They had only to wait, and wear him out.
Alas! it is very hard to tear out ambition and pride from the heart of man, rich or poor. In an evil hour, Richard Jones yielded.
CHAPTER XVII.
And now, alas! fairly began the Teapot's downward course. Every effort of Richard Jones to rise, only made him sink the deeper. To use a worn out, though expressive phrase, he stirred heaven and earth to get better tea; but the spell to conjure it forth was wanting. Jones had very correctly stated the case to his daughter—he had not credit; he had little or no cash; what he purchased in small quantities, he bought dear; and he sold as he bought. And thus, unable to compete with superior, capital and energy, he declined day by day.
But if he fell, it was not without a struggle. He turned desperate, and resorted to a desperate expedient; he sold his goods at prime cost, and left himself without profit. But Jones did not care; all he wanted was to crush his opponent—that object accomplished, and he once more sole master of the field, he could make his own price, and gradually retrieve lost time, and heal the wounds received in the battle.