“Pease, maʼam, Loo not fray much,”—though her trembling frock belied her, all over the throat and the heart of it—“and father don from home, maʼam, on the Wasintote” [Basingstoke canal], “and mother dot nobody, onʼy Loo, to do thins. And she send this, ‘cause Looʼs poor troat be bad, maʼam.”
The little child, whose throat was tied up with worn flannel from the char–bucket, with the grey edge still upon it, wriggled in and out of her shape and self, in the way only children can do; and at length drew, from some innermost shrine, a halfpenny and a farthing.
“And what am I to give you for it, Loo? Oh, you poor little thing, how very hoarse you are!”
Loo, with a confidence in human nature purely non–Londinian, had placed her cash upon the altar, upon the inside of which so many worship, while on the outside so many are sacrificed; without circumlocution, the counter. Her eyes were below the rim of it, till she stood upon tiptoe with one foot, while the other was up in the colewort roots, and then she could see the money, and she poked out her little lips at it, as if she would fain suck it back again.
“Pease, maʼam, Looʼs troat so bad, mother are goin to make a ‘tew, tree haʼporth of tipe and a haʼporth of ‘egents, and a fardy of inons!”
“What a splendid stew, Loo!” said Mrs. Ducksacre, seeming to smell it; “and so you want a haʼporth of taties, and a farthingʼs worth of onions. And you shall have them, my dear, and as good a three farthings’ worth as ever was put up in London. Where are you going to put them all?”
Loo opened her sore throat, and pointed down it. She had not yet lost her appetite; and that child did love tripe so.
“No, no, I donʼt mean that, Loo. I know you have a nice room inside; though some will be for mother, wonʼt it, now? I mean, how are you going to carry it home?”
“In Looʼs pinney,” replied the child, delighted with her success; for ever so many people had told her, that the Ducksacres now were getting so high, they would soon leave off making farthings–worths; and any tradesman who does that is above the sphere of the street–child.
“My dear, your pinney wonʼt hold them, potatoes are so cheap now”—she had just sworn they were awfully dear to a person she disliked—“I am sure you canʼt carry a haʼporth. Oh, Mr. Newman, you are so good–natured”—Cradock was just coming in, rather glum from another failure—“I really donʼt believe you would think you were bemeaning yourself by going home with this poor little atom.”