“Very well; but,” continued Miss Peppy, “you say the parcel is the size of your head: do you mean your head with or without the bonnet? Excuse me for—”
“La! ma’am, without the bonnet, of course. It may perhaps be rather heavy, but I an’t quite sure yet. I’ll let you know in an hour or so.”
Mrs Gaff rose abruptly, left the house, with Tottie, precipitately, and made her way to the bank, where she presented herself with a defiant air to the teller who had originally supplied her with a hundred pounds in gold. She always became and looked defiant, worthy woman, on entering the bank, having become unalterably impressed with the idea that all the clerks, tellers, and directors had entered into an agreement to throw every possible difficulty in the way of her drawing out money, and having resolved in her own determined way that she wouldn’t give in as long as, (to borrow one of her husband’s phrases), “there was a shot in the locker!”
“Now, sir,” she said to the elderly teller, “I wants twenty pounds, if there’s as much in the shop.”
The elderly teller smiled, and bade her sit down while he should write out the cheque for her. She sat down, gazing defiance all round her, and becoming painfully aware that there were a number of young men behind various screened rails whose noses were acting as safety-valves to their suppressed feelings.
When the cheque was drawn out and duly signed, Mrs Gaff went to the rails and shook it as she might have shaken in the face of her enemies the flag under which she meant to conquer or to die. On receiving it back she returned and presented it to the elderly teller with a look that said plainly—“There! refuse to cash that at your peril;” but she said nothing, she only snorted.
“How will you have it?” inquired the teller blandly.
“In coppers,” said Mrs Gaff stoutly.
“Coppers!” exclaimed the teller in amazement.
“Yes, coppers.”