"I'm trying to do accounts. I've been trying more or less all the evening."
"More foolish you! What's the use of accounts, anyway? If the money's gone, it's gone!"
"Yes, but still—why, you see, Denis, we—we've just got to be careful now, and I must see how our money dwindles when we never spend a farthing! And I can't get to-day right. I come threepence short."
"Put it down to stamps."
"I do my accounts honourably!"
"I'll help you. Read out items."
"Woman with baby—india rubber—watch for boy," she enumerated glibly.
"Eh? Woman with an india rubber baby and a watchful boy? How much that little lot?"
She was surreptitiously trying to tear a leaf from the account-book.
"Fivepence," she said, "and there was the hair ribbon for Molly—tenpence three farthings—that is one and threepence, three farthings, isn't it?"