He opened his hands where the halfpennies lay warm and wet. He placed his three coins on the counter.
"What!" she snapped, somewhat dangerously. "Sixpence, if you please!"
"I—I—I'm sorry!" he said weakly and blushing violently, "I'm sorry! I haven't got any more!"
"Go home!" said Madame Smythe more genially, melting as she perceived the lad's embarrassment. "Go home and tickle your fat aunt! Tell her I told you!"
Now even if they weren't hollyhocks, and he reflected bitterly that he had had no warrant for calling them hollyhocks, he wasn't going to be humiliated in this way. No! not even if they cost ninepence, let alone sixpence. No, he was going to buy a hollyhock, that is to say a chrysanthemum, for his mother, even if he died for it! How could he get sixpence? An appalling sum, on the further side even of avarice, but he was going to get it, and he already had three-ha'pence, anyhow!
Another three weeks of comparative virtue swelled his total to threepence. Two separate ha'p'nies from his sister Dorah (who had been married for years and lived up in Longton), and he was worth fourpence. It was a point of honour not to receive the slightest subsidy from his mother towards her own gift. A ha'p'ny borrowed from Harry and three-ha'pence from the sale of an enormous number of Dandy Dave's chronicled exploits brought him the desired total.
He marched boldly into Madame Smythe's establishment. "One chrysanthemum, please!" he demanded.
"Come again, Johnny, eh? Got the money this time?"
"Of course I have!"
"Hoity-toity! All right, my lord!"