Most of her customers—and they were not numerous—were penny-toy customers, so she was very anxious to oblige her larger purchasers when she did get any. Not but what she was polite and kind to every one who entered her little shop; she did not know how to be anything else.
“It’s a shilling box I want, please,” said Geoffrey, as though such a purchase was quite a small matter to him, and jingling in his pocket all the while the shilling and a French halfpenny of his own. “I want Sans Poison, please,” he added—he pronounced it in the English way, so that it sounded like “Sands Poison”—“because then Loveday can’t harm herself if she swallows some. She always will lick her brush, and it’s no use trying to stop her.”
Miss Potts, in common with the children, felt the greatest respect and faith in that mysterious person “Sans,” who, according to their belief, had discovered how to make paints that any child might swallow and not die.
“I’d never buy anybody else’s for Miss Loveday, if I were you, sir,” said Miss Potts solemnly. “You see, he guarantees them harmless, and we have proved them to be so, and ’tisn’t likely that now he’s made his reputation he’d risk it by selling others. But there’s no knowing what other folks will put in theirs; I wouldn’t trust them.”
Geoffrey agreed gravely, while he examined the box to see that the brushes and saucers were in perfect order. He was five years older than Loveday, and felt at least twenty.
Priscilla, who had been wandering about the shop, eagerly examining its treasures, came up to the counter.
“Miss Potts,” she asked very gravely, “don’t you think that if a double tooth is worth a shilling, a single one is worth sixpence?”
“I dare say you’re right, dearie,” said Miss Potts kindly, “but I never found mine worth anything, not even for chewing.”
“Did you have some once?” asked Priscilla, in genuine astonishment. The question was excusable, for she had never seen Miss Potts with even one.