A source of furtive interest to her were the movements of Willy Spratt, the cutler's son. Instructed thereto by his parents, who may have thought that the sight of him would be painful to the poor woman, the child gave up, going to the shop to spend his pennies. Looking in, a little wistfully at first, as he passed, he soon ran, singing or shouting, by the door, with no thought of the little companion who used to wait to join him there. When at length he took to coming in again for his screw of sweets, Mrs. Day would look away from him resentfully, leaving him to Mr. Pretty to serve. She could not bring herself to speak to the child who was alive and well, and happy with his acid-drops, while Franky lay in his grave.
Of the company of Mr. Boult at that time the Days had more than enough. Mr. Gibbon used to get up and retire to his room or go out to walk the streets, when the head of his firm appeared. "I have enough of him in working hours," he would excuse himself afterwards. "Mr. Boult is all very well in his place."
"I'm sure I wish he would keep there!" Bessie would declare. She thought the Honourable Charles was jealous; for with the elder daughter the draper had come to indulge in a kind of heavy badinage which may have gratified George Boult, and apparently was not displeasing to Bessie, but which those who looked on must have found fatiguing.
Bessie always pretended to be bored by these encounters of wit with the fat, bald-headed man who had been her father's contemporary: "You have no right to yawn when I am talking to you, Miss Bessie," he would reprove her. "Why do you do it?"
"Because I am tired."
"You mean because you are tired of my company? That is not the reason you yawn, however. You yawn because you have indigestion."
"I? Indigestion? What makes you think so, pray? Do I look like indigestion? Have I spots on my face, or a red nose?"
"No, but you are growing fat. You eat too much."
"Mr. Boult, how dare you!"
"You eat too much, and work too little. You don't take exercise enough to digest your food."