“If you please, will you be kind enough to sell me some bread-and-milk?”
The woman stared, then laughed.
“Lord bless your pretty face! I only sell bread, but I’ll give you some milk in, for sake of your pinched cheeks. Come along inside, little gentleman.”
He went inside; it seemed a very funny place to him, so small and so dark, and so dusty with flour; but the smell of baking was sweet, and he was hungry.
She bustled about a little, and set before him a bowl of bread-and-milk, with a wooden spoon to eat it with. The little Earl put his hand in his pocket to pay for it; lo! he had not a farthing!
He turned very red, and then very white, and thought to himself that the money must have tumbled into the sea with his watch, which was missing too.
It did not occur to him that the wicked boy had taken both; yet such was the sad fact.
He rose, very sorrowful and confused and ashamed.
“Madam, I beg your pardon,” he said, in his little ceremonious way: “I thought I had money, but I have lost it. Thank you very much, but I cannot take the food.”
The woman was good-natured and shrewd.